Venice, The City of Love!!!!

We woke up on Tuesday and, as we had stayed at a rest stop, we were able to get back on the road quickly to drive down to Venice. We dropped the car off at the airport and took a bus into Venice. This picture is of Jamie chillin' out on the bus.

This again took most of the day and it was very hot and after pulling the luggage to the hotel we just wanted to rest and cool down before doing anything else. We just got some dinner and then went to bed. Our only real day in Venice we walked from our hotel in the north part of the city down to St. Marco Square at the very south of the city. It was way to hot for a walk like that, but I still enjoyed the little alleys and churches. I have been to Venice once before and did a similar walk in reverse. I just loved basically being lost for much of the time and then coming out and seeing a church that was on the map and figure out what direction I needed to be going. This was much the same except we were following spray painted signed to the square. Here are some of the pictures we took on the way across the city.

Here is a great example of how narrow the alleys can be. Brian and I barely fit side by side.

This is one of the smaller canals. Very Venice looking!

Lizzie often times decided that she wanted to walk. I am quite amazed with how much she walked in Venice.

Sometimes she would even try to run a head, it made up for the times when she would decide to stop.

I just had to get one of her walking a lone in a little alley. Really now how cute can she get!!!!

Here favorite thing though was the stairs and the bridges. No matter how tired she was getting she would get excited for the bridge. She does still need a little bit of help with them but it is easier then holding her, and cuter!!!

We finally made it to St. Marco Square, very hot and tired, which is a very beautiful place.

We decided to take a boat back to our hotel and it was to hot to walk back, it was after all about 2pm. I asked the gondola drivers how much a ride would be and they said it would be about 200 euros. We said no thank you and walked away to go to the bus. Two or three drivers came running after us one at a time and we got them down to 80 euros, but still didn't think it was a good idea as all we wanted was a ride home and not the tour they were offering. So we got on the bus which was probably the smarter idea anyway as it was covered. I enjoyed taking pictures of the buildings that we passed as we rode up the grand canal. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Rialto Bridge is the main bridge crossing the Grand Canal with shops on each side of the middle walkway.

I just thought this was a nice looking building, don't know what it is!!

This was the best view picture that I got without a bus stop in the way.

That night my mom stayed with the kids after we got them to bed and let Brian and I walk to city for a while. It was nice to be in this romantic city at night alone with the one that I love. I have love Venice once again from my first visit and have always wanted to take Brian there.

Then next day we headed back to the airport and flew back to London for a day of rest before being off again.

As I finish this part of our many adventures I just want to end with a few thoughts about the trip in general.

The next two picture were a very common sight on this trip, for which we were very grateful. If it wasn't for the car rides these kids would not have gotten many naps.

They are cute when they are asleep.

I also really learned how important it is to have more adults then children. Brian and I would have been exhausted after this crazy journey had it not been for my wonderful mom being there and being able to give us a brake from entertain one kid or the other all of the time. Thank you so much mom for coming with us and dad for letting us borrow her for a while.

Drives through beautiful countryside with a destination are much more enjoyable then just driving to see what is around somewhere trying to figure out what there is to see in the area.

The most surprising thing to me this trip was the food. I had my first good carbonara in Italy. Every time I have been in Italy I have ordered it, because it is my favorite, and have been very disappointed, this time I found a good one and it again gave me faith in Italian restaurants.
That however was not the most surprising thing about the food on this trip, it was that the Italian food was probably my least favorite food, even though it was still good. All of the food that we had at friends house was wonderful. I really enjoyed the Austrian food as well. You don't really hear much about Austrian food but it is really good. I'm happy that Brian learned how to make the Schnitzel so we will be able to have it again, which we already have once since returning home. If you get a chance to try some real Austrian food, don't pass it up.

This trip did go much better then we expected which is a great relief. With all of the driving that we did, it didn't really feel like we drove that much. We did make sure to get out and walk around somewhere everyday which did seem to help. And tried to just go short do able distances each day. So all in all it was a great trip and it doesn't end there.

After a day of rest in London we headed back to the airport early Saturday morning to chatch a plane to . . .

Scottland

Germany And Austria!!!!

Well off we are again on our journey. We spent the night after leaving the Neff House is a very nice little hotel nestled deep in the alps. It really was about a 10-15 minute drive into the mountains from the nearest town which seemed to be about the end of the road. They had an indoor swimming pool so finally we were able to put on our suits and go for a swim, even if it was nine o'clock at night. Jamie loved the water but Lizzie would not get in. She ended up sitting on the edge splashing. We all had a great time.

In the morning we drove off to find Cinderella's Castle, we it wasn't actually her castle, just the one hers is based after called Newschwanstein Castle. It took a bit longer then expected to get there as the roads didn't connect very well crossing the border between Germany and Austria. We drove across that border a few times today but some did connect better then the first one. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the castle and area.

Looks about the the Disney castle, right??

This one is us on the trail to the castle. It is quite high on a hill top and the only ways up were bus, house drawn carriage, or to walk. We took the bus up and still had to walk 15 minutes. We had hoped to take the carriage down but by the time we left the castle we think that they were all done with that and so we enjoyed a nice walk down in the cooling evening.

The builder of the N. castle above grew up in the little brown castle in this picture. This picture is taken from the N. castle. I would buy the N. castle just to be able to look out at the beautiful scenery everyday, plus who wouldn't want to live in a castle even if it was only half finished inside.

From another side of the castle you get this great scene. The bridge is called Mary's Bridge, we didn't go stand on it as we didn't have the time.

Lizzie loved walking around the castle. I think that she did walk through the whole things even getting mad when we carried her up the many stairs that we had to climb. I don't know why but I always get so excited when she walks a lot, probably because she is just starting to do it. So here is a video that I took of her just before leaving the castle, since we couldn't take pictures in the main decorated rooms.

That night we spent in a great hotel with the smallest bathrooms ever. I am putting this picture up here so you all don't think I'm making this up. I am standing out side of the room to take the picture even.

Well we have now made it to June 21 a beautiful Saturday. You might have noticed from the pictures that we left the bad weather south of the Alps and have been enjoying good weather ever since our second day in Switzerland.

Well today we went to Innsbrock, Austria. It was a great little town full of fun tourist shops and cool building. This place was recommended by one of our Italian friends and I could see how it would be nice to stay a week and just relax and look in the fun shops and explore the place. Sadly we just had a few hours. Traditional Austrian clothes and Black Forest clocks were the two things that I most enjoyed looking at.

Here is Brian in front of the big clock tower that I kept thinking was a church but there were just more stores at the bottom of it!!!

After we left there it was time to again find a place to stay and dinner. We found this great little place and this was the view of Salzburg that we had just a short walk from it.

Sunday morning a friend of my mom's Erwin Roth came and took us to church, where we met his wife, Eva, and some of his children. After church we went to there house and had a very nice meal and really enjoyed visiting with them. They lived in my parents ward for a while about 25 years ago and so my mom was able to update them on what was going on with many of the members which still live in the ward. We also talked some about Austria and that was very enlightening to me. Austria in many ways in like Switzerland which I have know for years is really cool. It was very wonderful to spend the day with the Roth family.

On Monday we headed into Salzburg. It is probably one of my favorite towns that we visited. There were many nice things to see as we walked around, even though it was very warm outside. This is the pedestrian entrance to the car park, notice there is a cliff behind it. We got to park in a mountain. My mom has been here before and mentioned that they have turned an old salt mine into a parking lot. The hill she parked in we saw later so we don't know if this was a salt mine as well but it could have been.


We first found an interesting musical instrument shop with my instruments from all over the world. Then once getting into the city we headed for the castle up on the hill. Lizzie again loved to walk around and really enjoyed doing the stairs. Here she is sitting one the stairs going into the castle wall!!!

Here we are on the stairs into the castle with the city behind us. Nice how my mom took a picture of Brian taking a picture of me!!!



Here we are inside the castle wall with Salzburg behind us. Since the castle is up on a hill it has great views of the city.

Here is another picture of the city for the castle but this time no one is standing in the way of the city so it is easier to see why this city is so charming.

Here is one last picture of us in Salzburg. We are actually on the ground this time and not just seeing it from above.

Well it was then time to leave Salzburg for our last long drive of the trip. While driving through the Alps we had a rain storm like I have never seen before. Buckets of rain coming down so bad that the cars were pulling over because we assume they could not see, we couldn't. It was the first time on this drive that I was actually happy when we got to be in a tunnel. It was very slow going out of the tunnels as we would have to pull over for a few minutes until we could see due to lighter rain for a time. It finally calmed down and we were able to find a place to spend the night before traveling on to return the car and see. . .

Venice

Switzerland!!!!

Switzerland is a place that I love!!!! I visited there for the first time a few years ago and it is a place I will always love to return. I think it is largely because of the Alps and the good friends that we have there.

Monday when we Left Lake Garda we had a beautiful drive along the southern side of the Alps and then into them. We stopped at Como, Italy to have a look around and for a break. Supposable a lot of famous people have houses on this lake. We continued through the mountains, still with some rain and clouds,which prevented us from going to see the Matterhorn as I had hoped. We stopped for the night is a cute little village, Burglen, pictured below with us blocking the view, nestled in the Alps.


It wouldn't really be so bad waking up to these kind of views every morning. I could live with that even if there were less clouds!!!

Due to all the clouds and rain we went to Zurich where I was hoping to see my very great, great grandfather's sword. Adam Neff played an important roll in making Switzerland into what it is today. In a battle where the Catholics were fighting the Protestants, he saved the banner so that the Protestants won the battle. After that Switzerland decided that it was not going to let the Catholics make everyone Catholic. So basically they got freedom of religion all thanks to my very great grandfather. So here we are with his sword and the banner that he saved!!!

We went to the train station across the street for lunch since that is where Brian knows best from his work travels there we found this great station for the Euro 2008 football games. All of the big cities that we went to (which ended up being in the host countries of Switzerland and Austria) had places for all the fans to get together and watch the games in the middle of the cities!!! It was fun to kind of be a part of it even though we were not around when a game was actually on.

After Zurich we went to meet up with our friends, Beatric and Guy, in Soloturn. We had a great dinner and evening with them. Then next morning while they went to work they suggested that we go to a nearby manor house to let Lizzie run around in the nice gardens. They also have a rescue area where we were able to see some birds. Lizzie even found a big moose to sit on, after a couple tries she even decided that she liked it. I didn't put up a picture of the actual house because we did not get a good picture of it with people in front and I figured that I have enough pictures as it is. So you just get the cute one of Lizzie, sorry!!!!

After Beatric and Guy were done working they took us on a walk around the old town of Soloturn. It was great to have them walk around with us as Beatric's root go back to that area and so she was able to tell us much of the history. This is the big Cathedral in Soloturn, which I remembered from my visit five years ago is very close to the chocolate shop.

They never did fortify this whole city but they did start and this is Beatric, Guy and my mom standing in front of the one corner that they did finish!!! This wall was another things which I remembered well from my first visit here, but it seems very different then it did before from the road.

After another wonderful evening with our friends the next day we went to see one of the funniest castles I have ever seen. This is yet another thing which I remember well from my first visit but I wanted to see again. This castle is set on a hillside, and the picture below shows only the may part of the house there is a walkway leading to yet another room on each side. It would be quite a frightening sight going towards it to battle. I does look very very large from the front.

From the side however is isn't even as wide and Lizzie's little stroller!!!

Well maybe that isn't true but it is only about 15 feet wide at each end. This picture should put it a little better in perspective.

This castle very much reminds me of a move set. It must have been built to show and intimidate. We have yet to go inside but I can tell this from the outside. On the walkways there are even places painted to look like alcove, which really aren't.


Lizzie, Brian and I then went for a walk through a very lovely canyon. At the end of it we found this cabin along with two churches and an ice cream shop. It was a very beautiful walk and the ice cream was worth the five minutes wait for the shop to open. The churches both have legends behind them and the canyon seemed to have an importance to the city. Tombstones were carved in the rocks as we walked along, which we later learned were for some people who had really helped the city.

After that lovely walk we returned to Beatric and Guy's for a wonderful lunch and then it was time to tell them goodbye. We very much wished that we could have stayed longer as we really enjoyed our time with them, but we had to move on. so much to see and so little time.

On our way out of Switzerland we stopped at the Neff House, a house given to one of Adam Neff's children in honor of what his father had done. They gave each of the children a house but this is the last one that belongs to the family still. It has a room in it that talks about Adam Neff and the battle that he won. It was fun to finally get Brian to see this house that I have told him about so often.

It was then time to return to the Alps as we traveled through. . .

Germany and Austria!!!!

Interruption to Holiday Update

I interrupt these holiday adventures to share some of the fun times we are having at our house this last week.

For those of you enjoying nice hot (or way to hot) weather I just want to let you all know that I had to turn on the heater this week. It was just for a few hours as later that day the sun started shining and it got quite warm. Most of this week it has been so cold and rainy. I'm not sure what month it is I just hope that it isn't October already.

We are having some (two families) friends move back to the states this week and are trying to help them get their houses cleaned out. It has got me thinking of our up coming move and making me want to start early getting rid of as much as possible that we won't need as early as possible. I am hoping to start making list of what we have and what we are going to do with it next week, it is just over four months till we leave.

While helping them clean out their house we have been inheriting some things. One of them had a few bags of play balls that they were getting rid of so as I walked past a charity shop I and saw a great little ball pit I decided to buy it so that than I would have someplace to put these balls. Here are the kids in it playing with all of their other toys before we got the balls. Lizzie doesn't like to be in it much but at least she can climb out on her own.

We were also given a bath sit which has been the nicest thing ever. Jamie loves to stand up all of the time and when he is in the bath it is so hard to hold on to him. It he is sitting he is usually trying to push him self up with his legs or as shown in the picture leaning forward to grab things. It is so nice not to have to hold on to him all of the time. It is a back saver for sure!!!

Some other exciting Jamie news is that he is almost getting to the crawling stage. He can push himself into crawling position, but can't quite figure out how to move forward. It is very fun to watch him learning though. In this picture Brian actually put him into this position because Jamie was giving up doing it on his own by the time I thought to take a picture!!!

We are getting a chair for Jamie from the other friend that is moving which he seems very ready for as he is doing very good at chewing food and even picking it up. Last night I noticed that if there was food in his bib he wouldn't let me feed him until he had eaten it. When Lizzie needed a nappy change I put some food in his bib to keep him quite and happy while I went to change her. It turns out that he did a pretty good job with it. So that was how he ate the rest of his dinner while I took pictures because it was so cute.

He was so cute I even had to take some videos. Here is the one that is the cutest. The first half of it he is just playing to the camera, until I remind him of the food.

At our house we have many visitors. Most of them stay outside thankfully. We see many different kind of birds, there are squirrels and we had a large infestation on red ants in our yard (but thankfully we have gotten rid of most of them thank to some ant traps). Those are the things we see daily and besides the ants I quite enjoy watching them. We have also had sightings of a fox and rats, not as nice to see, but not to bad as long as they stay outside and we are not. This morning I found a very unwanted guest in our kitchen however, a black slug. Not a pretty sight and not something I want in my house. After watching it for a while I finally figured out how to take care of it without having to touch it as they are very poisonous (just ask my brothers).

Well there are some of our fun pictures from this week.

We will now be returning to our holiday update!!!

Lake Garda

Saturday, June 14, we left this beautiful scenery and drove through hills and over valleys until we reached. . .

Lake Garda!! This was the view from our little apartment and about as much of the lake as we saw, beside driving near the water for a while. We arrived Saturday evening to find Hienz Springer a friend of my mom waiting outside for us. He gave us the key to our apartment and showed us around the place. We didn't actually see anyone who ran the place until it was time to check out on Monday morning. It was definitely the off season We just had time to do get some, have dinner with , and go to bed.

Sunday we awoke and went to church, this was the driveway to it which is found in a nice little residential area of Verona. It was quite interesting trying to find it, we thought we were lost and then all the sudden we found the right little road and the church.

Since the weather wasn't wet we were hoping to go for a swim in the afternoon, but by the time we returned it had started to rain and instead we just slept all afternoon, which felt very nice!!! Monday we said goodbye to our friends Hienze and Erica Springer and headed off to. . .

Switzerland!!!!!

Our Adventure begins. Tuscany!!!

It has been a while since I have posted anything as we have been visiting some of the places in Europe that we have wanted to go to before we move home. We decided that since we will be moving back to the states at the end of the year to take advantage of seeing some more of europe while it is still so close. So over the next few post I will share some of these adventures with you all!!!

Our adventure started by missing our flight for which I take credit. I was so stressed about other things with getting ready for the trip that day that I got stressed about catching the plane a little two late. So the first night of our adventure we spent at the airport hotel in order to catch the 6:30 flight to Pisa, Italy. I must say with the rest of our travels I was much more worried about catching the plane. I learned my lesson well.

To start off the pictures here is one of some beautiful Tuscany scenery. We were a little surprised at how hilly it was there.

Our first stop was the famous tower that doesn't stand straight. We all took turning trying to push it upright, but no worries it is still leaning. We found out later that the tower started leaning about ten years after construction started on it, and they finished it like 200 years later without fixing the foundation or moving the bell tower. I guess they thought it would be a great way to put Pisa on the map and get tourist to go there.

It has been a goal of mine for a very long time to see this tower so I can now check it off my list of things to do before I die.

We then drove into the country to the place that Brian had found for us to stay. It was very remote, even including a ten minute drive on a not so good dirt road. It was a little apartment in this great Tuscany house. This picture does only show our entrance

The next day we drove to Siena. It was a nice drive but a little crazy once we got there. Finding a place to park and then figuring out how to get to the main city, once there we choose the wrong way to walk on the road, but was kindly redirected by a nice tourist agent lady This big square seems to be the main thing to see.

While looking at the Square the rain started to come down. We ducked into an gelato (ice cream) shop to wait it out. Here is a cute picture my mom took of us there.

On our drive to Siena we had passed this structure up an the hill. Since we had some time on the way back we decided to stop at it and find out what this little fort contained.

The name of the place is Monteriggioni, and it is a fort that was built to protect Siena from people traveling along that road between Rome and someplace else. This is my favorite place that we visited in Tuscany. Inside we found a marvelous little old village. It was probably only a few acres big with many little shops. We went into a jewelry shop and saw the person working on a piece of jewelry, and saw another weaving on a big loom. Everywhere was just old and amazing. It was quite a find!!

This is me enjoying the view from the parking lot of the fort. The posing was my idea, just in case anyone is wondering and I think it turned out nice!!!!!

On our way home we had this amazing little village before our eyes. It was such an amazing looking little village, sadly we didn't have time that night to stop go into it.

The next day however as we were to drive away from Tuscany we did decide to stop and have a look around. It also was an amazing old city with many crystal shops and even some places, we heard, that you could watch them shape the crystal, though we didn't stop to see that. We did have a nice walk and get some lunch before driving on to our next stop . . .

Lake Garda!

Hopefully that post will be up soon!!!!!