Life's Helmet

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Adventures in Italy - Day 3

Stop 4 - Verona, Italy: For our first stop of the day we headed into the city center of Verona to see the Romeo & Juliet sites. As we walked through the streets we were impressed by the charm of the small city. Although the Juliet balcony and wall of love notes are a bit of a tourist trap, we enjoyed getting to post our own love note on Juliet's Wall. After posting our note on the wall, we could barely get a picture of it because so many people were stopping to read it and take pictures of it. We laughed because we did it for our kids not realizing how many people were actually going to read it.

Stop 5 - Santuario Madonna della Corona: After our quick stop in Verona we headed to the breathtaking Santuario Madonna della Corona (a small church located on the side of a steep cliff). Unfortunately, it began raining in Verona and never let up as we drove to the church. When we got there, we turned off our car and found that the car wouldn't start when we tried to turn it back on. After getting a German couple to jump start our car, we still needed to go see the church so we turned off our car again leaving us stranded once more. Since it was still raining, we decided to take turns going to see the church so we wouldn't have to take the kids into the pouring rain. While Ryan went and saw the church, I called the rental company and when we swapped, Ryan got another family to jump start the car. Despite the chaos, the stop at the church was truly one of the coolest things we've seen in our travels.

After leaving the church, we had to drive back to Verona only to find that the rental company didn't have an automatic car to replace our car with. Grudgingly, we drove to yet another rental location and got the car swapped out. Once the car situation was finally taken care of, we drove to Lake Como and got settled into our apartment for the night.

Stop 6 - Bellagio, Lake Como: Having had such a crazy day, we still hadn't eaten dinner by the time we arrived at our apartment. Milo was grumpy so Ryan and Maeli decided to do a mini date and get some dinner. They walked down to the town with Maeli riding on Ryan's shoulders. The picked up dinner and took a seat by the lake while enjoying some gelato together. Ryan described their date as being "perfect" and said that their chat by the lakeside was a moment he will never forget.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Adventures In Italy - Day 2

Stop 3 - Burano, Italy: After seeing Venice the day before, we decided to hop on over to the island of Burano for our second day in Italy. The island was beautiful with brightly colored fisherman's homes lining the canals. Each house had its own "personality" which made our walk around town that much more amazing. As we walked through the town, we talked with the kids about which homes were our favorite and which one we would each pick to be "ours." (Maeli especially liked the pink ones.) Surprisingly, we even found a playground on the island and took some time to let the kids run around.

Before leaving the town, we made sure to drop in to one of Burano's famous lace shops. There was an elderly Italian woman sitting in a rocking chair sewing some lace who let us watch for a bit. Maeli was in awe and forgot all about personal boundaries as she peeked over the woman's arms to see her work. Although the woman didn't speak any English, we did our best to have a small conversation with her. She told us that her and her family run the shop and spend their days sewing the lace. She showed us a small patch of lacework and told us that a patch of that size usually takes about 5 hours. As we spoke, she told us about her own children who are now grown up. Despite the language barrier, our time with this woman was the perfect intimate experience one could only hope for on a trip to another country. This 5 minute conversation was probably nothing to this woman but it created a special memory for us that will last a lifetime.

After visiting Burano, we took the ferry back to Venice, walked 30 minutes back to our hotel, and lugged our luggage and kids back through the hundreds of stairs to catch the waterbus back to our car. After getting everything packed back up, we drove to Venice to check in to our hotel. We missed the check-in hours and had to wait at the gate of the hotel until someone came along to call the owner. After making the call, we waited another half an hour for the owner to drive up and let us in. As tired as they were, the kids loved getting to stay up past 10pm and were in good spirits the entire time.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Adventures in Italy - Day 1

Stop 1 - Gondola Ride: After flying into the Venice airport, we picked up our rental car and drove to Venice. Since no cars are allowed in the city (as it doesn't have streets), we parked the car in a parking structure, grabbed our luggage and kids, and started our journey into the city. We took the water bus to the stop nearest to our hotel and wandered the alleys of Venice showing several locals the address hoping they could help us find our hotel. This trek included lugging 3 toddlers and two large pieces of luggage up and down at least a 100 stairs. I'm sure we were quite the sight to see. After getting closer and closer with each local we asked, we finally found our hotel at the end of a dark alley. The alley looked a little shady but when they buzzed us in, we discovered a beautiful courtyard leading into a cute little hotel.

After unloading everything in the hotel room, we headed back out to the streets for our first Italian experience. We started off with some pizza and pasta at a little Italian cafe near our hotel. Afterwards, we headed to the canals to enjoy a gondola ride. Our gondolier was very friendly and took time to tell us about many of the buildings along the way. The kids loved the ride and Maeli especially loved moving from the front to the back of the boat trying out all of the different seats.

Stop 2 - The streets of Venice: After the gondola ride we took time to roam the streets of Venice. We headed towards the Rialto Bridge and made sure to get lost along the way. The kids had fun going up and down the stairs and running through the alleys. And since it was a hot day we HAD to stop and get gelato. :-)