Our seats were actually very close to the pope-mobile route! Cole took some great pictures!
Our second trip to the eternal city had a pretty similar itinerary to the first trip, with a few exceptions. We spent most of our day Wednesday at the Vatican, and while there we got to hear the pope speak! That was especially an exciting event, although Eva was not exactly a happy camper during his time at the pulpit... She and I left the crowded seating area and found some shade... She just couldn't take the group of cheering and singing Spaniards sitting in front of us. They were very enthusiastic about seeing the pope! :)
St. Peter's Square - getting in line to enter St. Peter's Basilica.
Afterward, we entered St. Peter's Basilica and toured. WOW! It's truly an amazing church - calling it a church seems silly, though. It's absolutely enormous. You could visit ten times and still not see everything! We also managed to make it into the Roman Forum this trip. Rome is just so big! Honestly, a 10-day trip wouldn't be long enough to see everything!
Fortunately, the temperature was much more mild and that made a huge difference in our energy level! Rome = walking, walking, walking! Whew! Here are some more of my favorite pictures from our time in Rome! Prepare for picture overload...
Inside the Colosseum.
Inside the Vatican museum - headed to the Sistine Chapel.
The Vatican museum's famous exit...
Of course, we also made it to the Spanish steps and Trevi Fountain! :) Here are some more shots of those stops:
Finally, no trip to Rome is complete without GELATO, PIZZA & COFFEE! :) Yum!
During Kate and Kent's visit, we also took the ferry and funicolare! We rode the ferry - stopping at Lecco and then re-boarding and riding on to Bellagio, with a picnic and some hiking around small lake towns in between. The weather was awesome - sunny and mostly clear, so our views of the lake were gorgeous. Lake Como is situated in (what we have been told) are the pre-Alps. It's one of the deepest lakes in Europe and is dotted with beautiful little Italian villages. The two-hour boat ride is definitely scenic!
Looking for fish!
We also took the cable car up to Brunate for an afternoon/evening of awesome views. Even though it was an overcast day, we left shortly after dark and saw the lights of Como from above, which was a special treat - it was amazing how much of town we could still see at night.
Going up!
Here's where the cable cars go around each other... One going up, one down.
While Kent and Kate visited, we had some really fun adventures right around Como. Originally, we were planning to spend a night in Lucerne, Switzerland (which is about 3 hours from here) but Eva's and my paperwork is still not complete. Our immigration consultant recommended staying in Italy! So we stayed. It's taking forever for the paperwork to be processed, and we're beginning to wonder if it'll even be done by December - and how that will effect our trip home for Christmas. So we continue to wait...
It was great to get to celebrate Kent's birthday here in Italy! (We also got to celebrate Dad's birthday during my parents' trip in August! A fun coincidence.) We went out for a birthday dinner at a restaurant recommended by many of Cole's coworkers. Kate even tried a seafood dish! This was stepping way outside of her comfort zone... We're talking about clams and jumbo shrimp still in their shells. Eyeballs present. ;) You get the drift!
We also took a hike near Como to Baradello Castle - along the route we finally found chesnuts! Cole's boss here had been telling us we could gather them and then roast them since it's chestnut season right now. So we gave it a try! We weren't too impressed with the flavor, but it was fun. I also bought some from a street vendor in Rome to compare ours with his... His definitely had a better flavor, but still weren't a hit with the group... Anyway, here are some more photos from our hike.
Eva's favorite place to be...
Reading about the castle...
The view was pretty awesome! :) Looking down over Lake Como, towards Switzerland and also the Po Valley.
Our second round of visitors left us Sunday and it was tough saying good-bye once again. Seeing Cole's parents interact with Eva was really neat! It also made us feel guilty for having her so far away from our families... We are counting down the days to our trip back in December - and looking forward to all the fun times to be had once we're back in KS! Here are a few of our favorite photos of Eva with Grandma and Grandpa Eilders. More stories and photos of our Eilders' Italian adventures to come...
According to Cole, one of the main things he and his coworkers discuss is food! They talk about it all.. ingredients, American versus Italian methods, whether or not McDonald's tastes the same here as in the U.S., what "real" pizza is like, etc. That seems appropriate for a country like Italy, where fresh ingredients are plentiful. So everyday at lunch, their conversations center around food... The result? Most of my Italian food knowledge is now second-hand information Cole has learned at work. For example: Cole once told his co-workers at lunch that I made fantastic (I may be embellishing here, but I'm sure he told them it was fantastic) chicken alfredo for dinner. They all laughed. Cold chicken? Is your wife trying to give you food poisoning? Mamma mia! Evidently a creamy sauce like alfredo is just not true Italian food... it's too complicated to be an authentic Italian dish - with too many ingredients. Much of the food here has a small list of ingredients, with simple, classic recipes. We were really excited when Cole's office-mate, Giovanni, who is known for making excellent home-made pizza, invited us over - for pizza! Hooray!
Giovanni and his sweet wife, Anna, may have thought I was a little crazy for bringing my camera and taking photos of him making our dinner, but they were very kind and let me capture the evening. I'm so glad I did! We had a wonderful evening. The pizza was truly fantastic - and Giovanni has even given Cole his recipe. I may get lucky and have a cooking husband by the time this year is over. Maybe we'll even have an Italian pizza party when we return... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We haven't even attempted Giovanni's recipe yet!
Giovanni added fresh basil from his garden and used homemade olive oil!
So, you're probably wondering if pizza in Italy is better than pizza in the U.S.A.? You'll just have to come visit and find out for yourself! ;)
"You FINALLY made it to Milan!" Our tutor, Dilva laughed at us when we told her... because Milan is very close to Como. As in, 45 minutes away.It's taken us months to squeeze in a trip to Milan.
Yes! We finally made it to Milan to sight-see and shop. Our train ride from Como was quick and easy. We had heard so-so reviews about Milan being "just okay." So we weren't in a big hurry to get there and see the sites. We were pleasantly surprised by the city center, including the duomo (cathedral) and Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel II, a glass dome covered shopping center and architectural masterpiece. It was a nice, relaxing Saturday afternoon - we didn't have tickets to see Da Vinci's Last Supper (I'm finding it difficult to reserve tickets for that). They allow you fifteen minutes with the painting and are sold out months in advance... Next time we attempt to see the painting, we'll have to plan our trip far, far ahead of time. Instead of following a strict itinerary, we had a relaxing day - stopped at the duomo and wandered through Galleria (Yes! I spun on the bull's balls...), stopped for gelato just around the corner and walked through one of Milan's beautiful parks.
First stop: the duomo... Italy's second-largest cathedral, and the world's third-largest, this was massive and impressive. The duomo is said to have one of the nails from the crucifixion but it's only moved to be visible once a year. We didn't take the elevator to the top, but you can walk the roof, winding in and around the spires. I think it would have cost around 50 euros to go to the roof, so we opted out. It was free to enter this cathedral and the line wasn't too long. I looked, but didn't see any signs saying that I shouldn't take pictures, so I turned my flash off (a pretty standard request in the cathedrals we've seen so far) and snapped away (respectfully, of course ;). Here are some photos from the interior:
There are many intricate, stained-glass windows throughout.
... and then we saw this guy. (Not the best picture, but I think you can tell..) It's St. Bartholomew, who stands wrapped in a sheet of his own skin. Bartholomew was skinned alive, so a lot of Christian artwork depicts him this way. What a terrible and gruesome death.
We left the duomo and headed next door, to Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II - the world's most beautiful mall! Of course, the stores there were a bit out of my price range, but a walk through the interior was completely free and gorgeous!
In the center of the building there is a tile mosaic on the floor - of a bull, who has no balls. Poor bull. It's said to be lucky for visitors to "take a spin" on the bull. Supposedly the locals will walk through and stop for a spin mid-conversation, as if it's an everyday occurrence. While we were there, a small group was huddled taking turns - and photos of each other spinning. I don't believe in luck (in my humble opinion, God has got things under control..) but I'm definitely not one to miss an opportunity to make myself look ridiculous, either. :) So I did it - no photos or video, but it gave Cole a good laugh. Here's a really fun video I found on YouTube showing how it's done:
I was all worn out from spinning on the bull, so we stopped for gelato (any excuse for gelato!) at Grom, a popular little shop just around the corner...
We wandered and shopped a little more, stopped for lunch, and just had a generally relaxing day in Milan - a pleasant surprise. The city center was an easy walk from Milano Centrale, so we walked back to the train station before heading back to Como early evening time... we'll definitely be heading back to see more of Milan in the near future!
The Cinque Terre region is located on the northwest Liguran coast, and it's an area in Italy that has become extremely popular with tourists... it's easy to see why. After taking a weekend trip to the area, we left in awe! If you're a "bucket list" kind of person, add Cinque Terre to your list! Someday you'll be glad you did. We rode the train, about a four-hour journey from Como - Milano - Monterosso, the town where we stayed overnight.
The five small, colorful towns dot the Mediterranean coast and are connected with hiking trails. Some of the trails are steep and not exactly "baby-friendly." Fortunately, there are also ferries that travelers can take to reach each of the towns. Our first day was spent on the beach, Eva's first sea-side experience! The water was cool, but the warm sunshine and sand were so relaxing! Such a nice day. We finished up by eating fresh seafood for dinner overlooking the coast. :)
On day two, we decided to venture out of Monterosso and check out the other towns in the Cinque Terre. We knew from a short walk along the beginning of the trail from Monterosso - Vernazza, that we couldn't hike with Eva and so we opted for the ferry ride. We rode from Monterosso - Riomaggiore. We then walked along the coastline from Riomaggiore - Manarola. This walk, called the Via Dell'Amore (Walk of Love) was stroller-friendly and about 25 minutes long... Literally, a paved/stone pathway that was a very easy walk. We were rained on for part of the walk, but continued to be amazed by the views along the way. It was gorgeous!
We stopped in Manarola for lunch and coffee - milk for Eva. During our meal, we saw a helicopter fly overhead and commented about how beautiful the views would be from above. We also talked about the possibility that they were flying in to pick up injured hikers. We assumed that any hikers who got injured would have to have been on a more difficult path, but actually somewhere behind us on Via Dell'Amore there were four Australian women injured by a small rockslide. (We thought this happened Sunday, when we were there... but news reports are all saying Monday. So our helicopter may have been sightseers and not a medical trip.) A helicopter came in to transport the women to a local hospital. After returning from Cinque Terre, we later saw several news articles, including this one - here - with a little more information about the accident. The Walk of Love has been temporarily closed until they can determine what caused the rocks to fall... they are saying it's due to the summer drought.
Along our walk to Manarola - you can see others walking along the right side. What a scenic train ride, too!
A view from the ferry - we believe the rockslide happened just to the right of this walking bridge.
Bottom line is this: we are thanking God for keeping us safe on our trip... A scary incident, for sure, and an example of how mighty and powerful nature can be. We are so blessed to have had a safe and positive experience! And so thankful that the injured women are recovering. It was certainly news that made us catch our breath - and count our blessings. Life is short and precious for sure.
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