Italy!

So our big trip to Italy was this week and it was a really great trip. We woke up early Monday morning and started our 9+ hour drive. It was a beautiful drive through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. We drove through the Swiss and Italian Alps, literally through them, we passed through 71 tunnels each way on the drive. One of the tunnels was 17 km long. It was hard to pay attention to the road with the scenery flashing by. It was snow capped mountains, waterfalls, houses way up on the mountain sides, beautiful Alpine lakes and meadows; it was just gorgeous. One of my favorite parts of this trip was the drive simply because it was so amazing, it was like the most beautiful (and longest) Sunday drive ever!

We stayed in a cabin at Camp Darby, an Army post near Pisa. It was good to have a place to spread out and relax when we weren't out sightseeing. There were huge umbrella pine trees all around the campsite and the kids enjoyed collecting the monstrous pine cones that were all over the place. They filled up the three window boxes on the front porch with all the pine cones they found. We even played some pine cone bowling. We liked having a commissary right there so we could pack lunches and cook our own dinners. The only thing the cabin was missing was plumbing, but the bathrooms were very close by. So it was a little like camping, and a little like being at home.

Our first full day there we went to Cinque Terra; five cities along the sea that are connected by trains and hiking paths. The total hike from town one to town five takes about five hours, so we only did a portion of the trail. The segment from the first to the second town was paved and only took twenty minutes. The next part, between towns two and three, took about an hour and a half. It was not paved and more difficult for the kids, especially Samantha. Natalie was lucky and got to ride on Jared's back the whole way. It was absolutely amazing; the towns built into the cliffs, the fields of crops terraced up the hillside, and the views of the ocean. The very last part was steps going up to the third town, 382 steps all the way up the cliff side. Jared challenged the kids to make it all the way to the top without stopping and they did it, even Samantha! When stopped for a picnic lunch and some rest there before turning around and hiking back to the start again. Madison, Emily, and Abigail were great hikers and didn't complain at all. Samantha was not so great, it was hard for her little legs to carry her so far. At one point on the way back Jared was carrying Natalie (asleep in the baby backpack) and Samantha down the hill! We stopped along the way and made our way down the ocean so the kids could see it better, but not to play because there wasn't an actual beach there, just lots of rocks. As a treat we got some gelati when we were finished hiking, and that began our vacation tradition of gelati every day. I got lemon gelati that day and it was REALLY lemony, with pieces of lemon peel and lemon seeds. Every day we also had people commenting about our "cinque bambinas". Sometimes it would be people coming up and talking to us about the girls, and other times we would just overhear people counting and exclaiming.

On Wednesday we drove to Florence to see some art! After driving in circles for a little while we found a parking garage and set off to explore Florence. I had outlined a rough itinerary for the day, but we still tried to be flexible and stop whenever we saw something interesting. Our first stop was the Accademia museum to see Michelangelo's David. Jared's knife was confiscated at the metal detector, but we were able to come back and get it after we were done inside the museum. It was a pretty small place with just a few galleries, the main focus of the whole thing was the David. And it was impressive to consider that someone so long ago was able to carve so perfectly and beautifully.

We used our trusty GPS to find our way to the Duomo and Baptistery after that. So the cathedral and the baptistery were huge and beautiful. They were both built with red, white, and green marble and had intricate carvings, statues, and paintings all over. Again, I found myself thinking about how people were able to build something so large and beautiful so long ago. We went inside the cathedral to look around and the kids were impressed by the big stained glass windows and also the mural painted on the ceiling of the dome of the cathedral. I wanted to find the Nuevo Mercado to do some souvenir shopping and along the way we stopped at another church. It was smaller and less grand than the Cathedral, but it was cool because there were people singing and it sounded beautiful. It was just a group of tourists singing from the look of it, but the way their voices echoed was amazing. After we left the church we did find the market and did a little looking and even a little shopping. Then we had our daily gelati, this time I ordered the melon and it tasted exactly like cantaloupe, there were even chunks of melon in the ice cream. Then it was back to the GPS ("In thirty meters, turn left") so we could find our way back to the parking garage. Along the way we stopped whenever we saw things that interested us; there were lots of fountains and statues and we even found a place to get a Doner Kebab for Jared.

The next day we drove to Lucca to walk on the city walls. I really wanted to ride bikes on the wall but we have too many kids that can't ride, so it was walking for us. A lot of the places we went I thought would have been a different experience without our kids! The wall in Lucca is around the old part of town and the newer area of town has been built around it. We parked (it was the only place we found free parking on our trip) and walked up onto the walls and started that days adventure. The top of the wall is about as wide as a one lane street, it's paved and there are trees planted along the edges. So it was a nice, easy, shaded three mile stroll really. There were little parks spaced out around the edges every so often and ways to get down into the city as well. When we had gone about halfway around we stopped for our picnic lunch. It was nice to just sit and watch people walking and riding their bikes as we sat and relaxed. We went a little further and then we found a playground where the kids played for a while. There was a merry go round that they all loved, but it did take Natalie a little while to warm up to the sensation of spinning. For our gelati that day we stopped at a cafe before we walked back down to our car. I tried the black cherry and I think it was my favorite flavor of the week.

On Friday, our last day, we went to Pisa to see the tower. There really wasn't much to do there except look at the big tower. Pisa had more tourists than any of the other places we went, but maybe it just seemed that way because they were all congregated around this one square. We took the cheesy holding the tower up photos, did some more shopping for souvenirs and gifts, and that day we went out for lunch. We ventured off the main area and found a little restaurant with a patio outside and had some pizza in Pisa. It was great pizza and the kids were glad to not be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! The gelati flavor of the day for me was strawberry, and again it was like eating frozen fresh fruit with chunks of strawberries and strawberry seeds in the ice cream.

That afternoon we went to the beach and played in the water. Madison, Emily, and Abigail loved being in the water even though it was pretty cold. Samantha stayed by the edge and let the waves wash over her feet, but she also went out into the water if Jared or I would hold her hand. The waves were really small and after an initial drop off the water didn't get deeper for a long while; we were pretty far from shore and the water was still only a little past my knees. Natalie loved seeing the ocean on Tuesday in Cinque Terra and every water that we saw after that was the ocean to her. But the ocean in reality wasn't fun for her. She screamed when she saw the waves crashing on the sand and really freaked out when we tried to put her feet in the water. She did go out into the water with me holding her and I convinced her to put her legs in and "kick, kick, kick" back to shore and Daddy. We only stayed for an hour, but the kids had time to collect some seashells and build in the sand. And in that hour Samantha, Abigail, and I got sunburned, but at least not too badly.

We left early Saturday morning to come back home. As much as we loved our vacation it's really nice to be back in Germany. Here the people don't drive like maniacs and I understand enough of the language that I don't feel lost all the time! When we got home we were the most efficient unpackers I've ever seen. Everything was out of the car and put away quickly and then we started on the mountains of laundry we brought back with us (five trash bags of dirty clothes!) It was really a great trip and we are so grateful to be able to live in Europe so that we can travel a little and see things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. After talking to my mom today for Mother's Day I learned that I took almost the exact vacation as a little kid. We stayed at Camp Darby and I went to all the same places that Jared and the girls and I went this week, only back then I was in a stroller!

For Mother's Day today I was woken at 7:15 by the kids bringing me breakfast in bed. Jared told them that for Mother's Day I wanted to sleep in so they put the food back in the kitchen and tried again at 7:45. They were again turned away. The third time they came in was 8:30 and I finally got the breakfast they had prepared for me. Madison made oatmeal, and since they kept getting shut down it had been reheated two times. Honestly, it wasn't the best oatmeal I've ever eaten but it was so sweet of them to make it for me.