Naked Statues & Crooked Towers

Andrew and I got into Florence August 13. After dropping off our luggage at the hotel we went for an evening walk. It seems that no matter where you go in Europe you are no more than 5 minutes from a huge cathedral. Here is the Duomo, one of the biggest in Europe and our favorite so far.

August 14 we went to go and see some sites around the city. We saw the real fake statue of Michelangelo's David. The real one is in a museum on the other side of a 4 hour line-up (summer in Italy...), so we were more than happy with this one, which stands where the real one used to.

We walked across the only bridge in Florence that wasn't destroyed in WWII. It was a really cool bridge because it had numerous little jewelery shops hanging off of it and lining both sides.

Next we went to the castle, where the famous Medici family lived during the Renaissance.

By this time it was pouring rain, so we decided to take a quick walk by the river and return to the hotel.

We were on a mission in Florence to find me a bag because I was tired of carrying this disgusting grocery bag every day (it is way too hot to carry a backpack). We started looking at all the little stands on the sides of the streets and after probably the 4th one, I was tired of shopping and actually found a bag I liked. Before the vendor came and talked to us Andrew turned to me and said 'Ok, now he is going to ask some ridiculous price for this bag and you have to barter with him. Start low, really low so that you don't end up paying too much.' I told Andrew that I hate bartering and that I can't do it. Then I tried to convince him that he should barter for the bag, but he refused, as he did not feel the need to barter for a purse... When the vendor came over to talk to me he said the bag was 65 euros, and that the lowest he could go was 55. I looked at him and started feeling really bad about asking for a lower price and said 'Is 50 okay?' As soon as it came out of my mouth Andrew burst out laughing and said 'No Amy you aren't going to pay 50 euros for that bag. It won't even last til the end of our trip.' So we left, without the bag. For the next few minutes Andrew tried (once again) to teach me the skill of bartering. I think I am hopeless. I will never learn to barter. This means that either Andrew will have to barter from now on, or we will be paying WAY too much for items we buy from street vendors. I did find a bag later in the day, but in a real store, not on the side of the street where you have to barter.

Last night we finally got around to watching the Sound Of Music. I think Andrew has gained a greater appreciation for the movie now that he has seen Salzburg, although he doesn't agree with me that it should still be winning Academy Awards.

August 15 we went to Pisa to see the leaning tower and man is it leaning! It was hilarious.

Tomorrow we are off to Rome.

The Last Of The Vs

We got into Verona August 10 and immediately went to check out the city. It is yet another beautiful European city. Verona has an old Roman arena in the city center which they now us for operas.

The city center has a ton of little crooked streets, some of which turn into pedestrian streets for the better part of the day, making the center even better, according to us.

August 11 we went back into city center to see some of the Verona sites. We visited Juliette's house, from Romeo and Juliette (not sure how a fictional character has a house).

We took a walk by the river to the old castle.

August 12 we took a day trip to Mantua. The town wasn't anywhere near as beautiful as Verona (or of course Venice) but it was cute.

They had a huge market where vendors sold everything from purses to food, but we spent most of our time sitting on a bench by a lake.

Tomorrow we are off to Florence for a few days before we go to Rome.

Venice

August 7 we went walking around Venice. We avoided the really crowded spots and found some nice quiet places, which is hard to do in the middle of the summer in Venice.

August 8 we decided that instead of spending/wasting money on a gondola ride (we heard them asking 80 euros for a 50 minute ride) we would buy ferry transportation for the day. So we got to see the city from the canals. From our pictures it looks like we could have been on a gondola.

We went to the island of Lido because we heard that it had a nice beach. We walked along the shore for an hour or so before heading back to the ferry terminal and continuing with our water tour of Venice.

More of Venice.

That night we decided that we were really going to splurge and we went out for dinner (ok, take-away). We haven't been out for a meal in a while. We found a spot along the Grand Canal and ate pizza.

Once it got dark we got on another ferry for a tour of Venice at night.

We got off the ferry at Piazza San Marco and walked around the square listening to several different bands play.

We decided to walk back to the hotel from the Piazza. We found that in Venice following a map can be really challenging, and instead, heading in the general direction of the place we wanted to go worked better (sometimes). So, on our way back to our hotel instead of looking at the map to figure out how to get home we just started walking. After taking turn after turn and crossing bridge after bridge Andrew and I realized that neither of us were paying attention and instead we had been following a Spanish family. We both thought that we were headed in the right direction to get back to our hotel, so we continued to follow the Spanish family. Following this family was challenging at times: sometimes they would start walking really slowly and they would force us to pass them at which point Andrew would have to stop and take some pictures so that they would pass us. The really awkward moment came when the family made a wrong turn and had to turn around (practically into us). Since we didn't know what we were doing or where we were we thought it would be best to continue to follow them, so we turned around too. I'm so glad that they didn't catch on that we were following them, because that would have been really awkward. We made it back to our hotel... ok the family led us back to our hotel and we missed them the next night trying to find our way back home.

August 8 we took it easy. We were slightly sun burnt from the day before and it was really hot out again. We spent the day wandering around the city.

Our time in Venice was excellent. Now we are in Verona and it is a beautiful city, which made leaving Venice a little easier.

So So Vienna & Beginning of Venice

We were in Vienna for a couple of days (Aug 2-5). Not much to say about it; it was pretty boring. Really beautiful city, but not a whole lot to do there, unless you like museums.

The Hapsburg's city palace.

The Parliament building.

I'm not sure if you know this about us, but we are huge thrill seekers (haha). The sign reads: 'Due to storm entire park area DANGEROUS!'. Still not sure why the park was dangerous, but man were we careful...

August 4 we went to a palace in Vienna and the grounds were gorgeous.

 
We went through a maze and only ran into dead ends a few times.

I wasn't feeling great so we headed back to the hotel early. We figure we spent only 6 hours out of the hotel in Vienna because I was sick (or just a baby). The time in the hotel was spent watching 'The Wire'.

Yesterday, August 5, we spent the afternoon watching 'Inception'. It was a great movie and our favourite part of Vienna (is that bad?). We caught a night train last night and it was deluxe compared to the train from Poland to Prague (had AC, no bugs, got breakfast delivered to us in bed). When we arrived in Venice this morning at 8:30 we were well rested and ready for the day. We immediately fell in love with Venice. It is amazing. Here are a few pictures from this morning.

The Grand Canal.

Us.

We spent a few minutes in St. Mark's Square and although it is very pretty, there were too many people, so we left as quickly as we could.

The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent wandering the streets/canals. We didn't get too lost... yet. We really needed a huge change in scenery after so much Germany & Austria, and this definitely hit the spot.  We have the next 4 nights in Venice and are looking forward to it.

The Hills Are Alive

We were slummin' it in Salzburg, as we were booked into a hostel, but the hostel wasn't too bad and its  always nice to have access to a kitchen. We arrived July 29 and got settled. It was raining so we weren't tempted to go outside.

July 30, it was still raining, pouring actually, but we decided to brave the weather for a few hours for a quick tour of the city.

Salzburg is very beautiful... even in the rain.

We were just wandering around and we came across this:

Anybody recognize it? If you don't, you need to watch the Sound of Music again. It is the fountain and gates that they dance around when Fraulein Maria takes the Von Trapp kids into the city. 

As we were visiting these gardens we saw a group of girls singing 'Do, Re, Mi' from the Sound of Music and dancing around a fountain. When I saw 2 members (a mother and daughter) from the song and dance crew a few minutes later I complimented them on their song and dance and they informed us that they were a team in a race (kind of like the Amazing Race but low key) and that they gathered all the other people to dance and sing with them for part of their competition, but did it around the wrong fountain, so they needed more volunteers to sing and dance around the proper Sound of Music fountain. They asked Andrew and I and we couldn't say no (trust me, I tried) so we sang and danced around the Pegasus Fountain. Unfortunately... the video has been posted on youtube... Andrew looks like he is pregnant because the camera bag is underneath his jacket, and I am mostly hidden behind the dancing daughter (thank god).

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/momdot2310#p/u/4/4uURiXsRvYQ

I think Andrew might be retarded.

We didn't get to see too much of the city because it was really pouring out. We decided to head back to the hostel after a few hours.

July 31 we decided we were going to go to Hellbrunn (just outside of Salzburg) to see the Hellbrunn Castle. This castle is known for its 'trick fountains'. I think it is better known for having the glass pavilion (where Liesl and Rolfe sing 'Sixteen Going On Seventeen') from the Sound of Music in its gardens. 

Getting to the Castle was a huge event. We decided that since it was a beautiful day and because we hate waiting for buses, we were going to walk. It was quite a walk, at least 6 km to get to the Castle, but we were always surrounded by beautiful scenery. 

Here is the famous glass pavilion. It was locked so I couldn't run around on the benches like Liesl did.

Here is a 'trick fountain'. At this one, the owner of the castle would invite guests over and eat dinner at this table. Sometime during or after the meal he would turn the fountain on and a stream of water would be squirted up the middle of all of the seats except his, which is at the head of the table.

August 1, we went to Werfen to see the largest ice caves in the world. 

We were really tired of walking from the day before so we opted to use public transit to get from the train station to the top of the mountain. THANK GOD!! It would have taken months for us to make it up to the top. This picture was taken from our gondola.

The hole is the entrance to the ice cave.

View from the inside of the cave.

The ice cave was amazing. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the cave but they were beautiful. We learned a lot of very interesting facts, most of which we have forgotten or will soon forget. The temperature inside the cave was close to 0, it was really nice to feel cold again. A lot of people got really cold during the 70 minute tour, include a little girl who was maybe 4 and crying before we even got into the caves because she was so cold. We were fine in our spring jackets.

On our way back to the hostel from the train station we walked through the Mirabell Gardens again (the Sound of Music Gardens). This time, it wasn't raining.

We had a busy couple of days in Salzburg but we are now in Vienna (and in a hotel again!) and although there aren't any Sound of Music sites I'm sure we will keep busy.

Munich - Parks, Lederhosen & Castles

Munich is our favourite Germany city. We have had a great time here.

July 25, we started off the day by walking through a park on our way to city center. We saw a playground and decided to have a seat and watch kids play. I know it sounds a little creepy and maybe it is, but we can't help it. Kids are so funny and so interesting to watch. We saw something we have never seen before at the playground. It was all Dads playing with their kids, no Moms in sight. It was really nice to see. At one point a little girl called to her father, "dah dah, dah dah!", to which he shouted, 'JaAaa'. We found our favourite Father/Son, and they were so cute Andrew took a couple of pictures of them. Here is Alex playing with his Dad.

After being creepy people watching kids at a playground we went to the main square called Marienplatz and to the royal palace called Residenz. The 'Culture Cup' was on, where a bunch of different sports (mainly fussball) were played along with other games and activities. Andrew and I had our picture taken by the local radio station. I think this makes us local celebrities now. Right?

We managed to catch the new Twilight movie. We have been going through a movie theater drought as we haven't seen a movie in a theater since the B Team was here almost 2 months ago. It was a great movie, but now we have to wait for the next one to be released.

July 26 was dedicated to exploring the Englischer Garden, one of the biggest city parks in all of Europe. Munich knows how to do gardens! We walked into one of the park entrances and saw a guy surfing in the river.

Then we had lunch overlooking a beautiful waterfall in the park.

Then we decided to go to the beer garden for a beer. Bavarian beer garden are very special; they serve beer by the litre. Below is what will forever be remembered as 'A Big Mistake'.

As we were drinking our beer, we looked over and to see group of men roll up on bicycles dressed in lederhosen. I thought that people who dressed in lederhosen were a myth. At one point, when they were finishing up their litre beers, they all 'moo'd' into their glasses very loudly. It was hilarious, and to my embarrassment, we laughed out loud so hard that they all looked over at us and started laughing with us. One of them even gave me a loud 'moo' when I took my next drink, just for a laugh. We managed to strike up a conversation with them as they were leaving. They're a group of carpenters from Austria. I'm still not sure why they were dressed up in lederhosen, although we tried to figure it out through the language barrier.

Round two of 'A Big Mistake'... with our moo'ing friends in the background.

July 28 we went to Fussen to see some castles. It was a gorgeous area. Here is a picture of the first castle, 'Schloss Hohenschwangau'.

The Disneyland castle is supposedly modeled after this castle, 'Schloss Neuschwanstein'.

We are sad to be leaving Germany and will definitely miss Munich, but tomorrow we are off to Austria. I can't wait for the Sound of Music Tour and of course Andrew can't either...