Sorrento, Capri and Pompeii

Over the past few weeks Kevin has been doing so much work that we new he couldn't hold out much longer...he needed a serious vacation! So, when the Naylor's told us they were going to Sorrento and Pompeii to celebrate their son Ray-Ray's 7th birthday we jumped at the chance to join them. We had a three day weekend, so it was easy to hope a cheap flight down to Naples. From Naples we took the train to Sorrento were we stayed in a great hotel. From Sorrento we took day trips to the Island of Capri and to Pompeii. From our hotel we walked down to the port Saturday morning to catch a boat out to Capri for the day. It was only about a 5 minute walk, but there were some great views from the rocky cliffs out over the port. Here is the view on the way down.



We had about 40 minutes until our boat left, so we had time to wonder around the port and check it out...and play with our new camera! Here is a shot of a boat that was tethered out out in the port. You can see how high the cliffs were where the main town of Sorrento is situated. There were these cool umbrella trees that Kevin really liked, so he got one in this picture:)



There was a small beach near the port and this was one of the old buildings there. It's amazing how things in Italy look old and cool when anywhere else they would just look junky. I'm sure in the summer this place is packed with people, but we were the only ones on the beach, and the boats were all pulled up onto the beach.



This is the other side of the port. We will be taking the boat out this way to get to Capri. It was about a 30 minute boat ride out to the island.



This is not the boat we took out to Capri, but I just liked the way the shadows fell across the ropes, and the colors...I don't know, I just liked it and I think it turned out pretty cool.



When we got to Capri we took a tiny little orange bus up a crazy windy road to the town of Capri. From there we hiked up to the west side of the island. This is a view from that walk. On this side of the island is a natural stone archway and some ancient ruins called Villa Jovis.



There are lemon and orange trees literally everywhere in Sorrento and also on Capri. It makes the area smell amazing, so I took some photos of the lemons growing over the wall of a Villa along the route up to the ruins.



This is the path out to the arch. There are houses all along this route, and the people can't drive cars up there are all. There were tons of locals with their little pull carts of grocceries walking up hill...and we wonder why Americans are overweight!



We made it to the arch, and it was awesome. It was so huge it was hard to capture in a photograph. When you look over the rail it's about 800 feet down to the ocean which is bright blue and amazing!



After a day of hiking we took the boat back to Sorrento for dinner with friends. This is the coast of Capri from the boat. Our friends the Naylor's (and their kids) and the Hudson's (and their kids) all made the trip down. They took a later flight, so we meet up when they got there Saturday night.



After dinner we all walked back to the hotel so the kids could watch a movie/sleep and the adults could sit out on the porch and drink some local wine! Corby's son Gavin and Janna's daughter Olivia have a budding romance. They would not be separated the entire trip, it was so cute! We will be using these photos as blackmail for them later in life I'm sure:)



The next morning we all got up and took the train over to Pompeii. Ray-Ray (who is turning 7 and is probably the smartest kid I know) wanted to see the ruined city before they leave Italy in a few months. Gavin and Olivia did some coloring on the train on the way there.



When Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD it totally covered the ancient city of Pompeii. From the time it erupted the people of Pompeii only had about 10 minutes before their entire city was covered in volcanic ash. As a result it killed 2,000 people, most of them were preserved in the ash exactly how they died. Some were hiding under things, or just laying down covering their heads from the falling ash. When they found the city 1600-ish years later they found voids in the ash. The people's bodies had decomposed leaving a mold of themselves in the ash. The excavators filled these voids with plaster and got exact molds of what the people of the ancient city looked like. Well, Ray-Ray knew this story (he's mega smart like I said) so Kevin told the boys that anytime though out the day when he said "Pompeii Pose" they had to freeze and strike a pose like one of the casts of the corpses. Yes, it's a little morbid, but it was a fun game. Here they are in their Pompeii pose before we went through the main gate. Olivia isn't too sure about this game:)



Inside the walls of the city there are huge areas. Some are residential, there are restaurants, bakeries, government buildings etc. This was the main city square where they would have done government business and had markets. That is Mt Vesuvius in the background. If you can see the two peaks (on the right and left) with the crater in the middle, then draw a triangle up from those two points. That is how large the mountain was prior to the eruption. It just shows how huge the eruption was and how much earth was moved and covered Pompeii.



Here's me and Gavin:) He was my buddy this day. He's sitting on top of one of the broken columns that surround the main piazza.



This is one of the ancient bakeries in Pompeii. They had huge stone funnel things (we're sitting in front of one) that they would put the whole wheat into. There would have been long wooded poles coming out from the stone and they would turn in to grind the wheat into flower. They would then make bread and bake it in the ovens (to the left of the photo).



This is in the courtyard of the largest house in Pompeii. The house took up a whole city block and had 40 rooms!



The people of Pompeii did some amazing things! They new that sanitation was important, so they would clean the streets when they got dirty. They had running water in the homes and businesses (with lead pipes and everything). So, when the streets got dirty they would flood them with sea water and wash away the nastiness. Well, while the streets were flooded they thought of making these stepping stones so you could still cross the street without getting wet! Olivia is showing us how it's done. They were also a standard distance apart so that all the chariots in the city could be able to drive through them without a problem...these people were crazy smart!



Most people did not cook in their homes. They went for ancient take out! This is one of the old fast food places. You can see the round areas were they would put the pots of food, and it even had a place underneath that would have a fire to keep it all warm. People would just walk up, order what they wanted and take it with them!



Just another shot in the main piazza.



We were in Pompeii all day, there is so much to see! Eventually we all took the train back to Sorrento...here is a look at the entire group. We were kind of a circus, but we had such a great time!! It was so fun to go with this group of amazing people!



We got back to Sorrento in time for a nice evening gelato and stroll. We stopped at a hotel on the coast that had a great balcony to take some photos at sunset.





The next morning we only had half a day. We had to get back to Naples and catch our flight, so we decided to stay in Sorrento and explore the town. We had stayed there the past two nights, but had left all day to see other sites. So, we walked back down to the port area, and just took the road that went up the coast. It's a great city! There was a rain shower while we were in a cafe, so we got this great shot of some of the lemons after the rain.






It was a great trip and a much needed vacation for Kevin!

Vienna

I totally forgot to post this. It takes so long to upload photos on this internet that I do that for 2 days and then forget to actually type and post things. Anyway, here are some photos of how we spend our Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad came out from the Republic of Georgia (much closer than if they were in America) for the week, and we traveled up to Vienna to see the city and go to the Christmas markets.

Vienna is a really beautiful city, everything was so clean, and it seems like every building had amazing designs/architecture. Here we are in the Gardens of the Imperial Palace. This is the back of the Palace...

 

 

Here is just a cool shot of the architecture. Kevin took this one, and it was just a random building, they are all like this, it was amazing!

 

Here is the front entrance to the Palace. These are all still working streets, so there are cars driving through the archway (we almost got run over, it was funny).

 

We walked through the town to the Christmas markets, which were very fun. There are tons of boths set up with all kinds of Christmas goodies for sale. There are Christmas decorations, winter clothes, toys and lots of food! At the entrace to the markets there was this huge advent wreath with giant candles and Christmas balls on it. There was also this huge old building that we never did figure out what it was (Dad tried to go inside, but we didn't have any luck).

 

The main street of the market.

 

One of the bakery booths..they have tons of food, and also hot muled wine...perfect for walking the cold markets!

 

Here is one of the sweets that Kevin could not pass up. This was a huge pastery filled with marshmellow-y type stuff. We made a huge mess, but it was pretty good:) We are in a resturant in the Nascht-Market area. This was a very cool area with tons spice stores, farmer's markets and lots of international food to eat. This particular place had both sushi and Indian food...it sounds strange, but Kevin and I had Indian and Dad had sushi, and it was all great. I was impressed at all the options.

 

Me and the Fam walking across the Danube.

 

One of the coolest parts of the trip. Kevin's grandma is from Vienna, so we thought it would be fun to find her old house. She actually remembered her address and all the streets near her house...it was impressive! We looked it up on google maps and found her place. We took some pictures infront of it to send to here.

 

 

On the drive home we got caught in a snow storm! I was driving and we had to go about 30 mph on the highway for about an hour to keep from sliding around. As we got closer to Italy things got better, but it was an adventure...my snow driving was excellent though:)

Amsterdam

Kevin had to do some training in the altitude chamber, which is conveniently located in Amsterdam. His training was on a Monday, so we went up Friday afternoon and spent the weekend touring around the city. Another guy in Kev's squadron and his wife went too, so it was great to have people to wander around with. I realize now that my photos are really random from this trip, so I just took a few from all the activities. They are also in reverse order for some reason, but it takes too long to fix it, so I'm not going to bother. We flew into Brussels, Belgium and rented a car to drive into Amsterdam. This first photo is actually from the gas station parking lot on the way back to Brussels airport...there were tons of birds in this lake, it was cool. :)



So, in the city there are these huge white letters that spell out "Amsterdam" in this park we walked through, we thought it would be fun to get our photo in the letter that spells our name (me in the E and my friend Domenica in the D)...well Kevin thought it would be funny to crop the photo so instead of saying Amsterdam it just said "terd"...thanks Kev...



As we were walking through the city we came across this Parade. We were very confused for a long time, but we finally figured it out. It was a parade for the arrival of St. Nicholas, and in Holland he is accompanied by many black helpers. They were originally know as Black Peter (in the 15th century) and it was a legand that St Nicholas gave presents to the good children and Black Peter would stuff the bad children into his sack and take them back to a pirate ship! Random, but now he's more like a jolly elf. So this parade was all people in blackface handing out gingerbread cookies, and at the very end was St. Nicholas on a horse. You just never know what you're going to find in Amsterdam! :)



Of course they would be in an American Police car...why not?


Here is one with lots of people in costume...


We also went to Madame Trussauds wax museum. It was amazing how realistic the people were. It was funny because they would have famous people like George Bush, Obama, Madonna etc, but then they would just have random people around the museum...like sitting on a bench, so you would walking by, and you would say "excuse me" to this person with there foot in the walkway...then you realize they are wax! It was kind or creepy actually! Here is Domenica with her new boyfriend:)



It was also kind of strange how many of the people they had were American. I only know one Dutch celebrity, so I guess I'm always a little suprised that they know all the same actors as Americans.

We also went through the famous redlight district. It was not what I thought it would be at all. It really wasn't as outragous as I thought. Yes, there were girls obviously selling sex in the windows, but really it was just the area for nightlife. There were clubs, bars, restuarants etc. Overall a great weekend, we will absolutely go back!

Veteran's Day hike

On Veterans day Kevin got the day off work (fitting, but still a nice surprise). It was a Thursday, and he had to work Friday, so we didn't really have time for a big trip, so we decided to go on a local hike right near the house. We have been looking at this huge shail slide in Dardago for a year now, and we thought it was time to climb it! We meet up with some friends and started up the mountain. We headed straight up the rock slide...for no other reason but to see if we could. It was very funny because with all the loose rock we would take one step forward and slide back about 3 inches...so it took a really long time. The hike was also super steep, there were points we were grabing onto grasses and plants to keep from slipping down. It rains alot here in the fall, so it was slippery, but not actually raining that day. We climbed all the way up through the clouds. Here is a cool shot we got looking through the cloads back into the valley. The sun was shining in the valley.



We hiked all the way up into the snow on top of the mountain! It was a great hike, very strenuous, but still fun. Here is the group looking over at the valley at a flat spot.



Here is Kevina and me up in the snow. There is probably about a foot of snow or more up there right now, but this was the first snow of the season, and then it turned to rain, so it melted alittle.



I was very thankful to get to spend Veterans day with my veteran...we didn't exactly relax, but it was great to be together!