Italy Part 1

Remember I said we needed a vacation?

During all that packing I had a bit of a brain wave regarding our vacation and put together an itinerary.  After our stuff left we realized we needed to clean the place, rent a car (no way our little EJ could do this trip), pack, and just unwind.  So we pushed back a day, picked up a rental, and on Friday the 19th we headed out!

Pinky is bound to give us a good ride!

Our rental (Pinky, though she is white) is registered in HH.  In Germany the location in which the car is registered is shown by the first two letters  (city or county) and the symbol (state crest).  In this case, HH is Hanseatic Hamburg, where my family is from! We knew we were in for a great trip.  We drove south through Innsbruck and the Brenner pass into the Dolomites.  Lovely scenery!  Then it was east past Verona into Venice!  We arrived mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day just sort of getting lost in the city.  For those who haven't been, the city is a maze of canals, alleys, and bridges.  No need for the stair master.  10 steps up each bridge adds up!  We saw San Marco square, the Rialto bridge (the big one across the Grand Canal), and countless cool shops.  There is nothing like wandering around a city as pretty and romantic as Venice at sunset--that's for sure!  My husband used his nose for food to find a neat little restaurant with excellent seafood.  Turns out it's the oldest in Venice, in operation since the 1500s.  Nice find!  While heading back to the bus terminal we accidentally stumbled onto a local festival with live music and tons of food.  Too bad we had already eaten!  It was a fundraiser celebrating 20 years of some community garden program for kids or something.  Anyway, I was wearing a relatively rare soccer jersey from Germany's 1994 team.  These guys near us were looking through the pictures of the first years of the event and all of a sudden they came over to me.  In broken English they showed me a photo from the early festival of 3 guys wearing the exact same shirt.  Cool!

 Dolomites

The Dolomites are a UNESCO site.  Wonder why?

 This is me on the Rialto bridge over the Grand Canal.  This picture is for the READ posters for Cal Young, but it shows the shirt I mentioned nicely.

 San Marco square

 Gondolas lined up

 One of the countless bridges.

The bridge to get to our VERY GOOD restaurant.  This bridge led only to the door of the restaurant.

The next day we sprung for a gondola ride.  I know it's expensive and a total tourist thing, but come on--we're in Venice!  We also bought Venetian masks, saw some churches, wandered along the waterfront and past the Bridge of Sighs, and got lost a few more times.  I am pretty sure we crossed at least 50 bridges (city has 400)!  Every plaza is different and you can see how much wealth was in the city.  Each house tries to outdo the last. It really is an amazing place.   Oh, and I was wearing one of the  crazy tie dye shirts from Cal Young, and some guy had an almost identical shirt (his didn't say Cal Young) and commented on mine.  Two days of rare T-shirt comments!  All in all a successful visit.

 This is really the way to see Venice--from the water!

Our gondolier was training his son.  We think only the actual gondoliers get the hat and the apprentices don't, but we forgot to ask if this was true.

 Every turn brings something amazing.

 Craftswoman making the masks.  Many are factory made from China, others factory made in Italy, but there are still lots of hand-made masks all over.  We each got a one-of-a-kind mask.  

Cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto.  A typical and tasty meal here.

Sunday morning we left early and headed to the tiny country of San Marino.  Just a few km from the Adriatic, this nation sits on and around a big mountain with one side on a cliff.  We immediately found parking, took a series of elevators up, and found ourselves in the old city of San Marino.  We kept walking up the hill (again, no need for a hotel gym in this country) to the first of three towers.  I should mention that it just so happened that weekend was a Renaissance festival of some kind.  There were events and exhibits all over the city and a series of archery competitions (think frisbee golf style).  Anyway, the first tower was hosting more stuff, and in the courtyard we got to watch traditional dancing and try some home made honey beverage that was REALLY good.  We then climbed into the actual tower, which included a steep climb up a sort of ladder.  At the top were some good humored guys in armor making a game out of surprising visitors with their weapons as they came up the ladder.  They were really funny and didn't actually scare anyone--just made it more fun.  I am not going to lie about the scary factor of being in a tall tower on the side of a cliff, but it was worth it for the views!

 We stopped for lunch on a nice terrace, but we were disappointed with the service.  The view was great, though--and below us was this pit in which there were archery competitions going on.

 Another group of archers counts up the points.

Did you know that San Marino was founded in 301 AD?

 Tower 1

Festivities inside the First Tower

 Dude scaring people  (sort of--as you can see he is mostly just good humored) as they came up the ladder and through the trapdoor beside him.  He was having way too much fun.

View of Twer 1 from Tower 2.  Told you it was on the side of a cliff!

We headed on to tower two, where we saw a medieval weapons collection.  Other exhibits we saw along the way included the werewolf and vampire museum and the waxworks and torture implements museum.  On the way back down we spotted a sword fight.  We sat down at a little café along the top of the ridge, enjoyed a plate of meats and cheeses, cold juice, and the Adriatic breeze.  Processions of medieval actors kept coming by with drums.  We drove back down to our hotel and looked out the window at the towers all lit up.  Wonderful visit!  San Marino is the Switzerland of Italy--clean, cooler (mountain!), very scenic and pretty, and full of good humored people proud of the independence of their little country.  Put it on your list!

Tower 2 seen from Tower 1

Dinner on the cliffside (and yes, I did sit there with almost no difficulties in spite of my fear of heights), where we were interrupted repeatedly by processions (seen over my shoulder) coming from . . . 

 . . . the sword fight!

 Oh, and archery at Tower 2

Tower one in the center, Tower two on the left, and on the far left past the light post is the mysterious Tower three, which doesn't seem to have an entrance.  This was taken from our hotel room.

Monday morning we headed over to Florence, but that is the next post as this one is long enough and we have stuff to do!

Moving is no fun

But friends visiting is!

So we'll start with that.  School got out Friday, June 28th.  The 29th we headed to the airport to pick up our dear friend Bill.  He arrived in spite of delays (his luggage did not).  Sunday we headed over to the Dachau concentration camp--first visit since we've lived here despite its only being 20 minutes away.  After this somber experience we headed up (after some decompress time) to the Weihenstephan for another goodbye get together with friends.  Fun times.

These trees were smaller then, and the barracks were on the slabs you now see on either side.

 Crematorium

This section is very peaceful.  Many of the ashes were scattered and bodies buried here, and it has a quiet feel to it.

Monday we did the standard Munich tour--Marienplatz, Viktualienmarkt, Englischer Garten, etc.  We finally went up into the tower in the Rathaus.  No pictures of that for now since I have posted about a million of Munich.  Tuesday we headed to Regensburg, which is a fantastically well preserved (read: not bombed to pieces during WWII) medieval city not far from us.  We spent the day wandering around, crossing the Danube, and looking at their cathedral (which, to my mind, is even more impressive than the Frauenkirche in München, which is saying something).  Lovely town!

Wednesday was a down day as we all weren't feeling well.  Thursday was no better for my husband, so Bill and I headed to Neuschwanstein ourselves.  This was my 6th trip this year!  Each guide includes slightly different information on the tour, so by now I was able to supplement the tour.  We also walked along the Marienbrücke, then hiked down the Pöllachschlucht, which we had hiked up with the grade 4 field trip.  Then we drove a few kilometers down the road into Austria just because.

Gnomes in Hohenschwangau

We spent the remaining days hanging out, running a few errands, having a cookout, and doing 3 other trips.  The first was Rosenheim to the Alexander the Great exhibit.  I skipped this as I was not feeling well.  Then we headed to Landshut for the Landshuter Hochzeit, which is a giant Renaissance festival.  It was weird, though--not many vendors other than food (though they did have a giant ox and cut hunks off to serve).  They also had normal people "observing."  It was a bit like a zoo--a bunch of people in costume and in period set ups interacting with one another behind a fence and people looking at them.  Weird.  We were not able to get tickets to the joust, but we had fun nonetheless, and Landshut is pretty, too.

 People in the "zoo"

Yep, they cut hunks off and served them.  It smelled fantastic!

The final trip we took was to Berchtesgaden, where we went up to the famous Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest), Hitler's mountain retreat.  Contrary to popular belief, he did not actually spend much time there.  Anyway, the fog was not kind to us.  We walked around, ate on the terrace, wandered quickly through the house, and realized it really is on the end of a knife-edge cliff and quite high.  Unfortunately we couldn't enjoy the view.  We had fun nonetheless, though the bus ride was creepy (based on the sounds and conversations around me and the road viewed from above and below--I can't say that my eyes were actually open).  Afterwards we headed over to the Salzbergwerk, a working salt mine, and did that tour.  We enjoyed that immensely.  I had done it as a child, but it's been over 20 years.  To get to the lower levels you can go down the wooden miner's slides.  SUPER fun!

Anyway, Bill left on the 12th.  We spent the weekend getting the dogs squared away, including getting Jimmy shaved, getting them to the vet for health certificates, etc. and packing.  Monday the 15th the dogs flew out.  Nerve wracking for all involved, and our neighbor's daughter was heartbroken, but they arrived safely and only mildly traumatized in Seattle, where Bill picked them up.  They are safely in Eugene now.  I can only say good things about Leanflex logistics and particularly about Lufthansa Cargo.  Wow, did we feel as comfortable as one possibly can in those situations.  Nice people who knew what they were doing and clearly had the dogs' interest in mind.  Awesome!

Another exhausting day of packing and our stuff was ready to go.  It was picked up on Wednesday the 17th, and again we can only say good things--this time about Werner Böhm shipping.  They provided boxes and even a giant roll of bubble wrap!  Talk about stress relief while packing!  We had planned to leave for vacation on Thursday the 18th, but since we had not had time to plan ANYTHING we delayed a day.  It was a lot of work getting everything boxed and wrapped and such!

Getting started . . . 

Yep, a giant roll of bubble wrap.  The carefully placed hangers were put there for size comparison, of course, and were thoughtfully laid out.

Gradually . . . 

 . . . getting everything stacked.  Boy, we I have a lot of stuff.

The house is empty, both of our stuff and of life--no warm, fluffy dogs bouncing to the door to greet us.  No pictures on the walls.  No future plans.  Just memories, friends we are leaving behind, and a finality that we didn't have when leaving Oregon.  Sadness and sterility.  Ugh.  Vacation is the way to go in cases like this.  That's the next blog post.