A Medieval weekend dream: chocolates, frites, beer and meringues! <3

Friday September 15 thru early morning Monday September 19, 2016

I was in Brugge  or Bruges -like the french and english call this place – for the weekend. My mom had told me how beautiful the town was and she had called it the Venice of the north. Bruges blew me away!! It was so much more than i expected.  🙂 I arrived late afternoon at the train station and took a cab into town. As we were getting to the town center I was delighted to discover how gorgeous this place was. I felt like Cinderella in a medieval town. No Prince Charming though! lol

Some fun facts about Bruges:

Did you know that in 2000 the city center was declared a World Heritage Site of UNESCO. That means the UN recognizes this is a place of importance for the world. Also Bruges was very important merchant town due to its port. This lasted thru the 1500s when this started to decline. Lace became a very important industry during the 1700s and Bruges was the place where Charles II of England and his court went when he was in exile.  Also, in WWI and WWII Bruges was occupied by the Germans. In WWII it was liberated by the canadian forces. And that is all i remember from the notes i had. 🙂 You can find more info about Bruges here 

Anyways, the taxi driver dropped me off at my hotel and after settling in I went out to explore. I highly recommend the hotel i stayed at – The Patritius. Smack in the middle of town but on a quiet street. It had the best bed I had slept on thru the trip. 🙂

It was Friday eve and i went for dinner at one of the million restaurants that border the Markt. Bruges is known for its beers, fries, waffles, chocolates and lace. Tonight i was trying the beers.

The Markt

The Belfry tower

Warm Belgian Beer 🙂

The waiter recommended a couple of them that i sampled. Beer in Europe is not served chilled like they do in the US. Is not bad, it just takes some getting used to. 🙂 Dinner was fantastic and after wandering around for a while i called it a day.

Saturday and Sunday were market days in Bruges. It was a lot of fun. Lots of people, music and a huge open market on a few streets.

On Saturday i decided to do the city walk that is in Rick Steves Belgium book. My first stop was at the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This church was built in the 12th century and it has a sample of Jesus blood shed on the cross. There is a short ceremony everyday at 11:30am to venerate this relic. I was lucky i walked in the church at 11:15am, with plenty of time to be part of this ceremony. Loved it!

Veneration of the blood relic. 🙂

After this, i started the city walk. Bruges has the most beautiful canals and architecture.As i was a walking the city i noticed these Madona statues that were at the entrance of some of the houses in the city. So I made it a game to take pics of all of the Madonas i encountered thru the city. I found 7, half of the time i was taking pics of other things and enjoying the views so i forgot to look and probably missed a few more!

My wanderings took me to this beautiful church, St.Giles. Did i tell you i love churches? 🙂 I believe they tell the history of the people that worshiped there better than a museum can.  Someone – who will remain nameless- told me that I probably like churches so much because i have a lot of sins that need forgiving. Hahaha!

St. Giles Altar.

I continued wandering thru the city and found some beautiful  canals and more of the amazing medieval architecture. Below are some of my favorites pics.

So beautiful!

One of this is not like the others…. 🙂

After a full afternoon of walking i had to stop and try the frites (fries) everyone talks about. Folks in Bruges love their frites; so much that they have a Frite Museum. No joke! I walked in to check it out and even Mr. Potato Head is in there. 🙂  Anyways, the fries were pretty good. They have different sauces that you can use – no ketchup unless you ask. I asked the lady that sold the fries to surprise me and put her favorite sauce on my frites. Not bad. As i was leaving the frites place i stumbled upon this bakery  that sold the most AMAZING meringues! I LOVE meringues…So i bought 2 huge ones and ate them too…OMG! Needless to say i was not feeling very good after this. I have to admit i did go back to the meringue place the next day and got 1 more… sigh…

My walk brought me back to the Markt where i sat for a while to people watch.

Before i forget, i have to tell you about the Belfry. The Belfry is a very old building built in the middle ages – yep! – and it was used for storing and displaying flemish cloth. There are very few of these left and Bruges has one right in the middle of town. Again, Belfries are recognized by UNESCO for their historical value. At the Belfry there is a carillon that plays music every 15 min. I sat in one of the benches under the carillon and enjoyed a free concert. 🙂

The Belfry of Bruges. 26 bells are still in use at the carillion

From Wikipedia: “A poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, titled “The Belfry of Bruges,” refers to the building’s checkered history:

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town” 

No dinner for me on Saturday due to  my overindulgence on meringues. it was an early night for me that day.

Sunday was again market day. I decided to go explore in the opposite direction I went on Saturday. The market was even bigger on that other side of town. I found a couple of live bands and I became part of the locals dancing to the band music and enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. I met a couple of the local folks that came to town in their bikes. It was a sea of bikes that day- check out the pic below. I also found a couple of the old wind mills;you are not allowed to go in anymore.They are up on platforms and cordoned off. I also visited a few of the chocolate stores and bought a few pralines to bring back home for my kids. It was unfortunate that i got hungry and the pralines did not make it home. Sorry kids! They were delicious though.:-)

This is the official entrance to Bruges. It has the Unesco recogniition as a historic site

Soo many people! So much fun!

Bikes everywhere!

Found the windmills!

After a day of walking and sightseeing i chose this place – Cambrinus – for dinner. It had good reviews in Trip Advisor. I laughed when the guy brought me the menu. It was a freaking BOOK!. 90% of it was for all the 300 beers they have in house, pictures and all. So with so many choices, i decided to ask the waiter to bring me his favorite beer. Good choice, warm, but good. Dinner was good too. So i definitively recommend this place for dinner if you are in Bruges

It was Sunday and my Seahawks were playing that day so i decided to go to my hotel to take a nap so i could be awake for the game. There is that 9hr difference you know… Probably should not have bothered since the Seahawks offense that day was MIA. arghh!

I truly enjoyed my time in Bruges. It was beautiful and i took it easy that weekend after 2 weeks of  whirlwind travel with the kids. This was the first time being on my own in this trip. Although i missed the kids, i had a really good time. I met some cool people, ate too much and was in control of 100% of my time. It gave me a lot of time to think and reflect and appreciate all i have and how blessed my life is and how much i love to travel.:-)

Monday was time to leave for London.

Chilly sunrise in Bruges…

I took the channel train!!! wohoo!

I took the train back to Brussels and then the channel train to King Cross Station in London. It was great and super fast!  But that is a story for the next blog entry. Until next one!

Much love, Ana ❤

A King’s Dream: Versailles

Tuesday September 13, 2016 – Paris Day 3

I have been waiting for this day! Versailles is one of those places that enchants. To get to Versailles we decided to use Uber again. Uber in Paris is awesome since you get to ride on Mercedes, Renaults, Audis… and they are cheaper than taxi and available most of the time.

Versailles was more than i expected. ❤

The driver dropped us right at the entrance of the Castle. The security line was HUGE! The kids were funny, they were telling me, Rick Steves said not to come between 12-2pm…blah, blah.blah.. Lol.

 

Told you the line was long…

Anyways, Versailles has a pretty interesting story. It used to be a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII. It wasn’t until Louis IV that the royal palace was moved to Versailles. Mostly because the king did not like living in the city. Versailles was the official residence of the King of France until they were forced to return to Paris due to the French revolution.

I feel like a Princess! 

Love this pic of the 3 of us! 

The tour yesterday took us thru the King’s rooms. Where he ate, entertained his friends, where his guard hung out, etc. He had a room for everything. Those were the public rooms, even the ritual of going to bed was a public act. The king and queen did have their private rooms, separate of course. I did not take many pictures since you can find the tour of Versailles online. I did take pics of the gardens and the room that impressed me the most, the Hall of Mirrors WOW! I have never seen such a beautiful room.

Can you imagine in the times of King Louis XIV having your guests come hang out with you in this room?

The gardens were beautiful. Here are a few of the pics we took.

The pics below were taken looking from the Palace to the main square. One thing i noticed is that at the palace there are not many furnishings. Apparently most were lost when the revolutionaries stormed the Palace and destroyed them. Most of the most precious works of arts that were here at some point, like the Mona Lisa, are at different museums in Paris.

if you want to learn more about Versailles go to this link.

This was another great day for all of us. We Ubered back to Paris- i think on a Renault this time – for another fantastic dinner.

Tomorrow, the Eiffel Tower or ET. Much Love, Ana ❤

Paris Historic Walk Part 2 and other randomness

September 15 and 16, 2016- Paris Day 5 and 1/2 of the other 🙂

My babies left early today for the airport to catch the plane. Their next stop is Puerto Rico. I will meet them again back home in about 1 week. I miss their annoying little selves!! 😦  

So Thursday I took it slow. We have been running around for over 10 days so it was nice to have some downtime. I went back to Ile de St. Louis to finish the Paris walk on Rick Steve’s book. But first I needed food! 

I stopped at this cute restaurant and spent 2 hrs there. I had the best French.onion soup there and then had one.of their.famous ice creams. I had my book with me so the waiter was happy to let me just sit, read and people watch. 

Pistachio! Omg the best ice cream.

Next was Ste. Chapelle. We missed it last time we were in Ile St. Louis. It was worth the time. The stained glass windows are beautiful and the dome is made out of wood. Gorgeous.<3 I don’t think.my pics do it justice since the day was cloudy and not much light was.coming thru the windows. 

Downstairs in Ste. Chapelle. Just wait!

Pano of the inside of the church. I need to practice my pano skills.. 😦

I love visiting churches!

After Ste.Chapelle, I went to Place St. Michel. It is a very nice Place, lots.of.people and restaurants everywhere. From there I randomly walked.around the Latin quarter. On my walk I stumbled upon a few other churches, small and very cute. 

Church St. Severin

Marriage bans at St. Severin. I know they did this but never seen it!

Church St. Julien de Pauvre. All wood!

I found this on my walk. You can rent a bike by the hour. Cash or credit accepted and you return it to any location that they have. Also, in Paris.the bikers have their own lane on the sidewalk. So when you are walking you need to watch for the crazy drivers, the mopeds AND the bikes. BTW, if you have been in Paris have you noticed how the bus lane is used by the buses AND the taxis and UBER drivers too? 

Would it be cash or credit?

Next day it was time to leave Paris. I was taking the train to Bruges to.spend the weekend in this magical medieval town. I took the train from the Paris Nord station. One interesting and a bit scary thing happened.on the way to the train station. My UBER driver – who drove like a maniac – got in a fender bender. And him and the other driver got out of the cars and.started arguing. It is a bit unnerving when you don’t understand what they are saying and the guys were getting agitated. I was ready to run if needed! Lol. But i made it to the station fine and took the high speed train to Brussels and then Bruges. 

I will be in Bruges for the weekend. It is a beautiful city! Until next post! Love, Ana ❤

Conquering the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre

Wednesday September 14, 2016 – Paris Day 4

Touring the Eiffel Tower was our main plan today. I had scheduled our tickets to be go to the sommet at 2pm. Worked like a charm. It was fairly quick the ride on the 2 elevators to the very top. You are about 900 feet up, so I told the kids they can go on a balloon ride since when I did it we only went up 1200 ft. 🙂 

Some fun facts. The ET was created for the 1889 World Fair. It was designed and built by Gustav Eiffel. It still is the tallest structure in France. 

Check out this YouTube video. Below is just a sample of all the pics we took at the ET. 

Waiting for our turn to go up!

The babies before going up!

My girl and I. In ❤

Cant tell what this is. Can you see any of the main buildings?

Sacre Couer in the background.. Our next stop

We took so many pics!

Going down to level 1. Got tired of waiting for the elevator…

This is a “spontaneous” posed picture.

This seems like a good christmas pic!

Nani ❤

Next stop was Montmartre. This was the highlight of my day. I enjoyed this more than the ET. We visited the Sacre Coeur church; I love churches. This one is not too old,less than 100 years old or so. The cool thing about this church is the Dome climb. You can see the whole city from there including the ET. It is 300+ steps up a VERY narrow staircase. I am surprised that baby Bibo the barbarian fit (barely) in the staircase. 

Here are a few pics of the church and the climb up. 

Very small space!

Checking the pics they took. Lol

Can you see the ET? 🙂

Bibo going down the staircase.

After visiting the dome, we went down to explore Montmartre. Very nice neighborhood. Lots of bars, restaurants and great shopping too! We were starving and dinner was not until 7pm so while looking for a place to buy a a snack, we stumbled upon this Colombian store. OMG! It had the best empanadas. That held us over until dinner. We found this great  little restaurant in Yelp called La Cave Gourmande. The food was awesome. Our waitress was from Cuba! So this time I did not have to use Google Translate to understand the menu. 🙂  Dinner in Europe is a relaxed affair. You are not rushed to give up your table once you are done. They won’t bring you your bill unless you ask for it. ❤

Some random street in Montmartre.

Found the Puertorican flag at the colombian market.

Sooo good!

After dinner, we called it a night. It was already close to 10pm and the kids were flying out to PR the next morning. 

I plan to stay in Paris one more day. Then next for me is Bruges over the weekend with a final stop in London next week.  

Until next post! ❤ Ana 

Mona Lisa, Venus and Louis Vuitton

Monday, September 12, 2016-Paris Day 2

Another late start for us today. Reasonable considering we got back to the hotel close to 2am after watching the Seahawks game.

The goal today was to tackle the Louvre. This is the largest Museum in Europe and it tends to be pretty crowded. We Ubered (is that a verb?!) over to the Louvre and after many ohhs, ahhs, wows! over the size of the place, we got in line for security check.  It moved quickly but it was hot as b@@@@ that day so our patience with each other was pretty thin. 🙂

The Pyramid.. have to go thru security first.

The Louvre  is overwhelming. It was packed so I was getting a bit claustrophobic plus my internal GPS does not work very well. Translation, I get lost even with a map. So I decided to follow Nani – Bibo ditched us since we walk too slow -and asked every attendant we encountered for directions.

baby girl ❤

My favorite rooms were the Egyptian rooms, the Greek statutes (Ares was my favorite Greek God) and some of the paintings of the Italian Renaissance; like Da Vinci’s Virgin and child with St. Anne. 3 generations in that painting. It’s beautiful!

The Venus de Milo was beautiful and she had six pack abs! 

Venus de Milo. Bella!

Mona Lisa underwhelms, not sure what all the hoopla is about but people were packing the room where she was at. I did not bother fighting the crowds for a pic of Mona.

Want to see more? Here you go! Louvre Virtual Tour – 6 min long Not my video but something I found in You Tube when i was doing my research on the place.

After we met with Bibo at the rendezvous point, we left the Louvre thru the underground stores. Yep we did a bit of shopping. Bibo was so patient. ❤

Place de Carrousel – You can see the Louvre behind. Those tiny people in the  pic, are my kids.:-)

Once we finished our short shopping expedition, we walked thru the Jardin de Tulleries and took a little break. The place is beautiful and it had these nice chairs were you can actually recline a bit and take a nap if needed.

Starting the walk down the Jardin de Tulleries

Past the Jardin is Place de la Concorde. You can’t miss the obelisque that sits right in the middle of the Place. This is the place where all the public beheadings with the guillotine occurred. Maria Antoniette and King Louis XVI were beheaded here. 😦

Up the street is Champs Elysees. Lots of major designers and stores are here. Yes, more shopping.. Sigh.. One perk, there is free Wi-Fi all along this long road. Kids were happy. In the times of King Louis XIV this was the place where you will come on your carriage to be seen.

Nani found the mothership at 101 Champ Elysees, the Louis Vuitton Store. She patiently stood outside in line to go in and after browsing for a while, decide to listen to the voice in her head – Me- and not spend her hard earned money there. ;). In the meantime Bibo and I went to check out our rides. Lol

the mothership…

our rides…

At the top of Champ Elysees is the Arc de Triomphe. This was Napoleon’s way of commemorating the victory of the 1805 battle of Austerlitz. The Tomb of the unknown soldier is there too. 😦

After making it to the Arc de Triomphe, we were exhausted so we decided to call it a day. We had dinner at a very nice little restaurant – Les Temps des cerises –  next to our hotel. Here Bibo tried the escargots for the first time and loved them.

My handsome Bibo. ❤

Tomorrow is a full day at Versailles, the largest Palace in France. Can’t wait!

Much love, Ana ❤

A day at Île de la Cité

Sunday September 11, 2016 – Day 1 in Paris

We arrived pretty late to our hotel. We were so excited on how cute and huge our room was! It was on the first floor – thank goodness since the elevator that night was out of service – and the bathroom was huge! Small things that make a big difference! Our hotel is in the Marais neighborhood.

We got up pretty late on Sunday and decided to spend the day close by at Ile de la Cite which is within walking distance from our hotel. The architecture of the city of Paris is so different from Rome! The city is busy, loud and there are a lot of homeless people but I love it. It is a vibrant city with lots of things to do. We walked along the Siene and eventually crossed over at Pont de Sully which connects the left bank with Ile Ste. Louis and eventually Ile de la Cite. 

Check this link if you want to see more of Ile de la Cite info

Strolling along the Siene River

Found this beautiful park right before Notre Dame

Our walk took past multiple bridges or ponts, parks and ice cream shops. 🙂 We finally made it to Notre Dame!

On the gardens behind Notre Dame

Statue of Pope and now Saint John Paul II. ❤

Can you see the gargoyles on the top of the column? They are used as water spouts from the roof.. Clever

Entrance to Notre Dame

Some Fun facts: Notre Dame was built in the French Gothic style, very different from all the romanesque churches we saw in Rome. Construction started ~1163 and ended ~1345. During the French Revolution the ignorant peasants decapitated the 28 statues of the King of Judah that are in the front of the cathedral. The “heads” were later found and are now in a museum. The heads on the kings of Judah you see now are reconstructions that happened in the 1800s. The revolutionaries thought the statues represented French Kings and since it was in vogue to remove the head of those you did not like, especially royalty and aristocrats, they did it to the statues too. 🙂

Napoleon was coronated emperor of France in 1804 here in Notre Dame and in 1831 Victor Hugo published his novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wanted to go find Quasimodo up in the South Tower. There are lots of cafes around the city that have the name Esmeralda.

Notre Dame has 10 bells and they all have a name. lol. The oldest one is Emmanuel and it sits in the south tower (the one you can climb up) and it is the bell you hear at the top of every hour. We toured the basilica and then stayed for Mass. 🙂 I could not understand much since it was in Latin and French but Mass is a ritual so i could tell what was going on and could do the standard prayers. 🙂

Here are a few pics of the inside of Notre Dame.

The church is beautiful, with less ornamentation but the architecture is spectacular. The kids liked it a lot.

After Mass and taking a million pics, we walked around and found a cafe to go eat and people watch. I also found a pub to go watch the Seahawks game. Very important!!

On our walk to the hotel we encountered this guy playing Mozart on the street. He was fantastic. They have multiple concerts across the city and i plan to catch one while i am here.

This is the pic of the sunset over Notre Dame. It was a great way to end the day at Ile de Cite.

Priceless! ❤

At about 10pm we went to The Moose, a Canadian pub in the heart of Paris. They have ALL of the football games. We met some other Seahawks fans thereand Baby Bibo the Barbarian, took some pics with a few of them. Best of all, the Seahawks WON!! Wohoo!

This was the cherry on top on a fantastic day! Until next post! Much love, Ana

La dolce vita!

Saturday Sept. 10, 2016

Last day in Rome ;(  we took advantage of having a late flight time and did the Rick Steve’s walk in reverse.

We walked past the Trojan Forum/Market on our way to the Trevi fountain.

I think this was Augustus Forum..

Beautiful morning for a walk… Trojan Market on the right

 It was nice to be able to walk around the city. It was sunny and pretty hot too. 

Can’t remember the name of this church. It was on Piazza Venecia at the end of the Trojan Forum. There was a wedding!

Our walk took us past some cute streets and piazzas that i can’t remember their names now. Loved this street with the petit bridges going across

Love the colors on the buildings

And we finally made it to the Fontana de Trevi. It was packed! Apparently everyone in Rome decided to come and throw a coin in the fountain. Legend says that if you throw a coin with your right hand over your left shoulder you will come back to Rome. As a nerd, I was checking out facts about the fountain and found out that there was a movie made in 1954 called Three coins in the fountain and one of the characters is named Anita. I think I need to watch this movie. 🙂  Did you know that all the coins collected from the fountain are used to help the needy in Rome. Pretty cool.

It was packed almost impossible to move around.

I threw my coin in to make sure i come back to Rome! And soon!

Beautiful! Baroque style

Next stop was the Pantheon. 

Baby Bibo the barbarian and me ❤

The Pantheon is now a church dedicated to St. Mary. It is beautiful! But like Nani said, we should have seen this church before going to St. Peters. Lol

Our next stop was Piazza Navona. Huge and our stop right before lunch. 

Panoramic view of Piazza Navona

Lunch was next! This was the highlight for me. We went to Trattori der Pallaro.

The food was amazing! Thanks for the recommendation 😉 

This is a fixed menu and you eat what they cooked that day for lunch. It was the best meal i had while in Rome. It is a family trattoria so the owners were there. The owner came over a couple of time and showed us how to use the bread to mix all the flavors of the food. OMG! After the food and the wine I was in need of a nap. 

5 course lunch. Fixed menu. Best i had in Rome. ❤

The owner. He was so cute!

We waited out the mini thunder storm in the trattoria. Then it was time to head back to the hotel and the airport. 

Our next stop in this trip, Paris! 

Paris from the plane!

I will be blogging soon about our 4 days in Paris. Much love, Ana ❤

A tale of Emperors, Popes and Gladiators

Friday Sept 9th, 2016

We were gladiators for a day! We went to the Scola de Gladiators en Roma. 

This is a group that is dedicated to preserving the history of gladiators. Our training was at 11am. When we arrive in our UBER, we were greeted by our instructor for the day, Alexandra. She was awesome! We were part of a group of 11. All the kids were significantly younger than mine. 😉 
We got our gladiator uniforms – not customes- since being a gladiator is a real job and we started our training.

Kids wanted me to make a mean face but i kept laughing! 

We got a history lesson on the life of the gladiators. Apparently gladiators were short (5’6″ avg) not as tall as portraied in the movies. Our instructor decided that Bibo was too tall to be a gladiator so instead he was a Barbarian. Barbarians were tall, fierce and fair skinned. So Bibo is now known as Baby Bibo the Barbarian! Lol

Some other interesting facts about gladiators: they didn’t always fight to death. The “promoters” had too much money and training invested to lose it all. There were female gladiators or gladiatrix. Sounds like the name of a porn movie…Anyways, the gladiatrix would fight with dwarfs or other gladiatrixes. I guess these were the Divas of ancient Rome. 🙂 A gladiator could become a celebrity and in some cases they were sex symbols. Wow! Imagine if they could get endorsements like Rusell Wilson. 

After our history lesson the real training started. We did training in the courtyard. It was freaking hot and those red robes did not help. Then we were ready for battle. 

Nani and Bibo fought each other and Bibo won. And then I fought Bibo and…he won too! We got our certificates for completing the training

Damn! These kids and their mean faces.

I recommend this experience to anyone that is visiting Rome. After this, we went back to our hotel to change and eat before heading out to Vatican City. 

VCity is absolutely beautiful. ❤ Yesterday they had the square set up for the Wed and Sun masses since the Pope is in residence so we could not walk freely around. 

Panoramic of St. Peter Square

Baby Bibo the Barbarian in front of St. Peter’s Basilica

Did you know that it took 120 years to build the Basilica as it is today? The real work started after the original basilica was demolished and this one started in 1506. Construction ended in 1626. Most of the construction was financed by Popes selling indulgences for contributions. OMG! This abuse of power eventually lead to the Protestant Reformation. 
Regardless the Basilica is breathtaking! 

It was absolutely packed the day we went but the lines to get in were not bad.

Main altar

Sun setting on Vatican City

After visiting the Basilica, it was almost time for our tour of the Vatican Museum. 

It is a beautiful place but I think you need to know what you want to see or you can be there forever. We took a tour and ended up ditching them to get to the Sistine Chapel faster 😉 no pics allowed in there. The kids loved it! Michaelangelo was a genius and his representation of the Genesis is awesome. 

The moon and St Peters on the background

It was a pretty long and fun day for us. That day they had a concert of classical music in one of the gardens inside the museum.  

We are having a great time in our european adventure. Until next post! 

Molto amore, Ana ❤

Ruins, the Lupanare Grande and a Stratovolcano.

Today we went to Pompeii and hiked up to the Mt.Vesuvius crater. 

Our day started by taking the metro to Termini station. I have to admit I got turned around (nothing new here, me getting lost…sigh) and took me a while to figure out the train stuff. My kids said I was train-gry. Lol. But we made it. We took one of those high speed trains that travel at over 190mph. We were in Naples in about 1 hr. 

The countryside

On our way to Naples on the train

We got to Naples with plenty of time to spare before they picked us up for the tour so we found a cute cafe to have breakfast. Italians have a light breakfast – cafe and a croissant – most of the time. My kids were not having it so we had paninis for breakfast. The cappuccino was just what I needed to get my day started. 

We got picked up by our guide Maria at the Napoli Centrale piazza. She is a really cute Italian lady and was our guide for both tours.

Ready to go!

Pompeii was as awesome as I remembered it. ❤ 

Beautiful Pompeii

 Pompeii was created between the 8-9 year BC. It was destroyed by Mt Vesuvius explosion in 79 AD. According to some websites, about 20 feet of ash and pumice covered the city. In Pompeii there is only 1 building that has the original ceiling and floors intact, the public baths. The ceiling has this beautiful mosaic and the walls have drawings and motifs in red color. Even the marble floor was preserved under that section of the baths.

Gorgeous Nani ❤

Imagine being a Pompeiian living and working in the city and after your work you will go to the common spa to relax. Although i am not sure I will like to share my pool with so many people. 😦

 Pompeii was a merchant town. It was pretty cool to see the streets and how the Pompeiians had designed a system for the carts to go thru avoiding the crosswalks. 

I’m crossing the street…

Yes, those big rocks on the streets were used as crosswalks mostly to avoid the sewer waters freely running thru the streets.
The city had 2 ampitheaters, a large one that is in use today for concerts (Pink Floyd played there in jul’16) and a much smaller one that is just for show and tell. 

The frescos at the lupanar -the brothel- are very funny. The lupanar at Pompeii was called Lupanare Grande. Since the prostitutes or lupas, spoke different languages it was easier to have a menu of sex positions for their clients to choose from. A Roman kama sutra ;).

A la carte!

The beds were made out of stone so the clients would not stay long. So the menu was like a fast food restaurant, quick and cheap. 🙂 

Pompeiians  had an obsession with the male phallus, displaying it everywhere, including using it as a signs on the street to point the way to the lupanar and in other signs on the walls across the city. I guess you can say Pompeii was a city full of dicks. 🙂 

On the floor….

On the wall..yep they are everywhere.

In the town of Pompei they also had this large meeting area at the center of town. On one end was the Temple of Jupiter who was like the king of the gods in roman mythology. If you notice on the pics, there are some.modern sculptures now in Pompeii.  The govt has added those statues all over Pompeii. I do not like them because they don’t fit in Pompeii; it messes with its ambience and overall feel. 

We ended our visit to Pompeii with lunch at a local restaurant. Guess what they had for lunch for us?? Yes, pizza Margherita. 

Baby Bibo ❤

Next was Mt. Vesuvius, nestled in the town Torre Del Greco. Mt Vesuvius is a stratovolcano. That means that it is a volcano built of alternate layers of lava and ash. I checked google and apparently they are one of the most deadly too as the people of Pompeii found out. It took 40 minutes from Torre del Greco to the Mt. Vesuvius National Park parking area where the hike started. It was raining and SUPER windy. It was a 1 mile steep climb to the crater and by the time we got there we were missing pieces of our cheap 1 euro ponchos and we were wet and cold. 

Yes! We made it! Its cold!!!

Crater behind us!

It could have been worse I suppose; it could have been hot and humid. 

The views from the crater are amazing. You can see Sorrento and the bay of Naples. I will post more pictures once I download them from the camera. The crater was cool for being just a huge hole. Lol

We ended the day back in Napoli Centrale. We found another cafe with wifi, of course, and relaxed with a yummy gelato until it was time to go back to Roma. It was a great day!

So until next post.  Molto amore! Ana ❤ 

Thumbs up or Thumbs down?

Today we woke up in beautiful Rome. Got to our hotel pretty late so we decided to relax a bit and sleep in. After a nice breakfast/lunch at one of the cafes, we walked to the Flavian Amphitheater, aka. The Colosseum. Our hotel is one block from Roman Forum and Colosseum :).

 It was simply amazing to be able to come back and see it with my kids. It is incredible that over 50k people could fit in there. I kept thinking Games of Thrones… 🙂 

Panoramic view of the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine

We spent a good 2 hrs in there. I think we brought the WA weather with us since it was overcast and rainy at times during the day. It was great! 

My beautiful babies ❤

I can imagine the time of the gladiators when  they will yell “Hail Caesar! We who are about to die salute you” Yikes! I guess being a gladiator was not a glamorous job and one that had 50/50 chance of you coming home after a day at work. Sometimes the decision if a gladiator would live or not was left to the audience, thumbs up or thumbs down. 

Next was the Roman Forum. This was the center of Rome. You have to use your imagination to picture what life was in those time -stores, where senators made the laws, temples of worship, etc. The walk starts in a street called La Via Sacra, or Sacred Street. You will see another Arch called the Arch of Titus. This one has a pretty interesting story. It was built by Jewish slaves that were brought to Rome after the Romans took Jerusalem. 

Arch of Titus

It took us another 2.5hrs to get thru the forum. These are my favorite pictures of the Roman Forum.

They are awesome. ❤

Panoramic view of the Roman Forum

❤

Can you find Bibo in this pic?

And to finish a fantastic day, here are a couple pics of a beautiful sunset in Rome. ❤

That is it for today. I hope you are as happy as I feel right now. 🙂 

Much love, Ana 

 

Mind the Gap….

I am writing this sitting at the airport waiting for our next plane -which is delayed. That seems to be the theme of the first few days of the sabbatical. 😦 But regardless, we are having a grand time. 

Saturday was the day we were supposed to leave. Well, I started the day with a speeding ticket, FML. I guess I was to excited to leave Portland. When the policeman came to my side door, he was surprised it took me so long to pull over. HELLO! he only had the lights on…no siren and it was ~6:00am. How was I supposed to know he wanted me to pull over? Lol.  For $160 he could have given me the full police display and used the sirens too.

Our plane out of Seattle was “delayed” for 25 hrs….hmm… how is that different from canceled? But the airline insisted they were delayed. Try rebooking a flight to Europe at the last minute and not mess your plans? I am relentless, so I got us out of the US and on our way to London via Portland – yes we had to drive back- the next morning. 

We ended up scrapping Venice when our flight from London was delayed and we missed our Venice connection. So we have been in London since yesterday morning and had a great time. Found an awesome hotel on the south bank and did as much.as we could in 2 days. I am back in 10 days for a longer stay but this is it for the kids. 

Looking for platform 9 3/4 😉

On our way to the hotel on the Tube

Yesterday before leaving on our first sightseeing expedition, Bibo had to have fish and chips. The picture below are the kids waiting for our drinks and food. 

At the Mad Hatter Pub waiting for fish and chips.

First stop was Buckingham Palace. We did the tour of the State Rooms of the Palace. It was great and the kids were so absorbed in the history. My favorite part is the exhibition they have of Queen Elizabeth celebrating her 90 years of age. The State Rooms were impressive! I think they had a drawing room in every color.:) 

Wow!

We were sooo tired but powered thru the day!

Then we walked and walked, and walked some more…  We went to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and then we walked along the Thames on the south bank. 

Big Ben. Kids took lots of these pics 🙂

What I like about London is the diversity of people you see, so many different languages, food choices, it is so alive! I’m glad I am coming back. 

I still get confused with the left driving and freak out thinking our Uber driver is going to crash. The kids find this amusing. 🙂

Today we went to the Tower of London. What an amazing place! I could imagine the people in the 1400s walking around the Palace and doing their normal life. This Palace was built by William the Conqueror, the first Norman King. We got our history lesson when we took the Yeoman Warder Tour. Those are the guards with the funny looking hats and puffy collar. Fantastic view of the Tower Bridge

This is the Tower Bridge across from the Tower of London. 

We had a great time at the Tower. The kids like history so they were very curious to learn more about British history. 

At the Tower of London

King Henry VIII protecting the crown jewels! Hahaha 🙂

The scolds briddle. Used in gossiping women as punishment. Sheesh!

Same door….

With baby girl ❤

At Heatrow waiting for our plane

We had a greay day, great lessons in history and a lots of fun being together.

 I need to wrap this up since they are finally ready for our plane leave. Next stop is Rome. Let me know your favorite restaurants and places to visit while in Rome. 

Until next post! And don’t forget, mind the gap. 😉

Much love, Ana ❤ 

Ready, Set, Almost Go!

Today was my last day at work before I leave for my first part of sabbatical. I am almost disconnected, not quite there yet, but I will be by tomorrow! I am going to miss my awesome team but I know they will do fine and keep up with the Thirsty Lion happy hours without me. 🙂

I am pretty much done packing. I think my OCD behavior of making lists paid off this time. I probably have too many shirts, but it is just a small carry-on so I am not going back and redoing it.

I can’t wait to see my kids tomorrow and take off on this adventure with them. I have an awesome trip planned and i know Bibo and Nani will never forget this. We leave tomorrow and our first stop is Frankfurt and then Venice. Wohoo! I can almost taste the gelato! 😉

If you have been to Venice before, leave me a comment on your favorite restaurant or place to visit; we will be there for 2 days.

Until next post! Be happy. ❤ Much love, Ana