Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Hills are Alive...
June 9th--Today we travelled to Salzburg. We caught a train leaving Budapest at 11:00. We had open seating and were able to find our own 6 seat compartment on this train. It was absolutely wonderful because we had a lot of room to sprawl out. In fact, Austin did lay down and take a much needed nap. We arrived in Vienna around 2:00 and had to change trains. Luckily, this was really easy because the train we had to get on was right across from the one we just got off of. Before getting on the train though, we confirmed that it was the correct train and were told to go to the very first car because the air conditioner was working on that car. We were so glad to have gotten that information plus the car was pretty much empty and we got another compartment all to ourselves. This compartment was even better than the previous one because we had an outlet. So, I was able to update the blog and then we watched "The Sound of Music" on the computer all the way into Salzburg. It was neat watching the movie with the "real life" scenery going by outside the window. We arrived into Salzburg a little before 5:00 and then caught the bus to our apartment. After we got off the bus, we kind of stood there for a while because we had a hard time figuring out the map. We finally asked somebody where Linzer Gasse (the street of our apartment) was and they indicated that we were heading in the right direction. We arrived at the Frauenbergers Restaurant that is just below the apartments and run by the same owners of the apartment. We were greeted by Ingrid. She took us upstairs and showed us 3 different apartments we could choose from. They were all awesome and painted very colorful. The apartments have only been open for about a month after being totally refurbished. After getting settled in and making a quick run to the grocery store, we went downstairs to the restaurant to have dinner. It was then off to bed so that we can get up early for our "Sound of Music" tour in the morning.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Budapest at Best!
June 7th—We left the apartment fairly early this morning since we only had 2 days in Budapest. It was a warm, sunny day as we were leaving the apartment and walking towards the Great Synagogue. Our apartment is located in the Jewish Quarters so we were about a block away from the world’s second largest synagogue after New York’s. It was interesting walking into the synagogue because all the men, including Mike, were immediately handed a yamaka to wear. After walking through the synagogue, we went outside to the Tree of Life sculpture that was built on the site of mass graves of those killed by the Nazis. The willow tree makes an upside down menorah, each individual leaf lists the name of a victim, and pebbles represent prayers. We also walked through the Jewish museum which had very sad pictures of the victims in concentration camps. After leaving the synagogue, we walked down to the Vaci utca which is a hopping pedestrian boulevard that features Eastern Europe’s first McDonald’s. It was hard to convince the kids we were just looking at the McDonald’s not eating especially since it was getting close to lunch time. Speaking of lunch, we ended up walking to the end of Vaci utca to the Vorosmarty Square where Gerbeaud is located. Gerbeaud is the most famous restaurant in Budapest. We sat outside under big umbrellas which will become real important later on during our lunch. Gerbeaud is where we enjoyed our first Hungarian meal. Mike ordered a plate of Hungarian meats and I got a Hungarian salad. The part about the salad that made it Hungarian is that it had every kind of pepper (or to be correct I should call them paprikas) on it. Budapest is known for its paprika. It is used in a lot of different foods. Anyway, as we were eating, the clouds rolled in and it started raining. It wasn’t just sprinkling it was pouring down at times. This is when the big umbrella we were sitting under came into play. Since we weren’t prepared for the rain, we had no umbrellas, we decided to just stay put at the restaurant until the rain passed. This allowed us to order desert as well. The rain finally slowed enough to a drizzle that we were able to leave and start walking towards the Chain Bridge. The chain bridge is one of the world’s great bridges that connects Pest’s Roosevelt ter and Buda’s Adam Clark ter. It crosses over the Dunabe River that once separated the 2 cities (did you know that Buda and Pest were origainlly separate cities?). We enjoyed our walk across the bridge and up the funicular to Castle Hill. The clouds looked threatening at this point, but so far we had made it without getting wet. From Castle Hill, we walked past the National Dance Theater and the former Defense Ministery (that sill show war damage from WWII) on our way to Matthias Church. Before reaching the church, we got stuck in the rain again and took shelter against a building. It was at this time we decided to make a run for the church and get out of the rain. The church was pretty to see and a chance to stay dry for a while. Unfortunately, it wasn’t big enough to occupy our time long enough for the rain to stop. When we got back outside, we walked to the Fishermen’s Bastion. It looked like the façade of a fairytale castle. It was very impressive and we got some great views of the Danube River and the Hungarian Parliament from here. It is called Fishermen’s Bastion because in the Middle Ages, the fish market was just below here and it was actually guarded by fishermen. From here, we took shelter under a pavilion in a small park. We got some good laughs here because it was just us, 4 American’s, huddled under this pavilion until we looked up and were surrounded by an Asian tour group and a Hungarian band group also seeking cover. We quickly got pushed out of the way by the band group and were back out in the rain. Luckily, the rain stopped again and the band was setting up under this pavilion for a performance. Mike went to get us some snacks and we enjoyed the live music for a while. There were several people dancing around to the music as well. It was a fun afternoon, but we had had enough of fighting the rain so we decided to head back to the apartment. We weren’t at the apartment very long before we went to eat dinner. We went to a restaurant called Blue Rose. It is right next to the Jewish Synagogue so it’s not far from our apartment. We enjoyed more Hungarian food. Mike got goulash soup and I ordered beefsteak stroganoff. Both were very good! When we paid our bill, the waiter gave us a 10% discount for the next time we return and we told him we would be back tomorrow. When we got back to the apartment, we had an e-mail from our apartment we were renting in Salzburg. The e-mail informed us that the apartment had a leak and it was flooded so they wouldn’t be able to rent the apartment out. So, we had to do some quick searching for a new apartment.
June 8th—Today we were hoping for no rain, but nevertheless brought our umbrellas with us. We walked to the Great Market Hall. This is the popular Old World mall with produce, cheap eateries, and souvenirs. We first walked the bottom floor exploring all the heaps of paprika available. We were kind of doing some bargain shopping until we realized that paprika was being sold everyone and were getting confused. We settled on a booth where we got both hot and sweet paprika. We can’t wait to use it back in the States. We then wandered up the stairs where there are many places to eat and souvenir shop. We walked around the entire top floor looking at all the different Santa Claus’ available. We finally settled on the one we liked best. I never would have imagined that I’d find a Santa made in Hungary, but I did and am thrilled about it. It is absolutely gorgeous! After our purchase, we decided to eat lunch at the market. So, we went into a cafeteria style eating restaurant and again enjoyed some Hungarian food. Mike got “real” goulash and I got a stuffed paprika. Again very good! With our bellies very full, we left the Great Market Hall and caught the metro to the Andrassy street. This street is Budapest’s main boulevard lined with shops, theaters, and cafes. We strolled down the street and got a good feel for today’s urban Pest. Along the street was the Opera House so we walked into the entry of it, but did not take a guided tour. Once we reached Oktogon Street, we got on the metro and took it to the very end of Andrassy. This is where Millennium Monument is located. The monument was built to celebrate the city’s 1,000th birthday in 1896. From the monument, we walked into City Park. The kids immediately spotted a playground and ran to go play. It is in this park where the Szechenyi Baths is located. We weren’t sure if the kids were allowed in so Mike went to check it out while I watched the kids play at the park. When he came back, we were all so excited to know that we could all participate in taking to the water. Upon entering the bath, we got a personal changing cabin. This thing was about the size of a small entry closet. All 4 of us crammed in there to get our bathing suits on. The anticipation of getting in a heated swimming pool was almost more than we could all handle. The first bath we got into was about 30 degrees Celsius. It felt so good. We literally stayed in it all afternoon. The kids swam around. We were glad to see that Austin does remember how to swim. The other swimming pools we had encountered during our traveling have been too cold for him so he had a blast today. There was a center section of this bath that blew jets and when it wasn’t blowing jets, it had a current pool that rotated the water creating a kind of moving river. The middle bath was for swimming and was about 28 degrees Celsius and the other bath which was the warmest at about 38 degrees Celsius. Since I love “baths” so much, I had to at least go see how warm that other one felt. It was heavenly except for the old men in their speedos. J We had to drag ourselves out of the water because it was starting to get close to dinner time. We headed back to the apartment and quickly got ready for dinner. We decided to go back to the Blue Rose in order to use our coupon. We all enjoyed goulash soup tonight except Mike who had a cold, fruit soup. After dinner, the kids went to bed and the adults did some future trip planning. Luckily we found a replacement apartment in Salzburg, which is where we head tomorrow.
June 8th—Today we were hoping for no rain, but nevertheless brought our umbrellas with us. We walked to the Great Market Hall. This is the popular Old World mall with produce, cheap eateries, and souvenirs. We first walked the bottom floor exploring all the heaps of paprika available. We were kind of doing some bargain shopping until we realized that paprika was being sold everyone and were getting confused. We settled on a booth where we got both hot and sweet paprika. We can’t wait to use it back in the States. We then wandered up the stairs where there are many places to eat and souvenir shop. We walked around the entire top floor looking at all the different Santa Claus’ available. We finally settled on the one we liked best. I never would have imagined that I’d find a Santa made in Hungary, but I did and am thrilled about it. It is absolutely gorgeous! After our purchase, we decided to eat lunch at the market. So, we went into a cafeteria style eating restaurant and again enjoyed some Hungarian food. Mike got “real” goulash and I got a stuffed paprika. Again very good! With our bellies very full, we left the Great Market Hall and caught the metro to the Andrassy street. This street is Budapest’s main boulevard lined with shops, theaters, and cafes. We strolled down the street and got a good feel for today’s urban Pest. Along the street was the Opera House so we walked into the entry of it, but did not take a guided tour. Once we reached Oktogon Street, we got on the metro and took it to the very end of Andrassy. This is where Millennium Monument is located. The monument was built to celebrate the city’s 1,000th birthday in 1896. From the monument, we walked into City Park. The kids immediately spotted a playground and ran to go play. It is in this park where the Szechenyi Baths is located. We weren’t sure if the kids were allowed in so Mike went to check it out while I watched the kids play at the park. When he came back, we were all so excited to know that we could all participate in taking to the water. Upon entering the bath, we got a personal changing cabin. This thing was about the size of a small entry closet. All 4 of us crammed in there to get our bathing suits on. The anticipation of getting in a heated swimming pool was almost more than we could all handle. The first bath we got into was about 30 degrees Celsius. It felt so good. We literally stayed in it all afternoon. The kids swam around. We were glad to see that Austin does remember how to swim. The other swimming pools we had encountered during our traveling have been too cold for him so he had a blast today. There was a center section of this bath that blew jets and when it wasn’t blowing jets, it had a current pool that rotated the water creating a kind of moving river. The middle bath was for swimming and was about 28 degrees Celsius and the other bath which was the warmest at about 38 degrees Celsius. Since I love “baths” so much, I had to at least go see how warm that other one felt. It was heavenly except for the old men in their speedos. J We had to drag ourselves out of the water because it was starting to get close to dinner time. We headed back to the apartment and quickly got ready for dinner. We decided to go back to the Blue Rose in order to use our coupon. We all enjoyed goulash soup tonight except Mike who had a cold, fruit soup. After dinner, the kids went to bed and the adults did some future trip planning. Luckily we found a replacement apartment in Salzburg, which is where we head tomorrow.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
From a "Kuna" to a "Forint"
June 6th--Today was a travel day and we did not want to leave the beautiful paradise of Croatia. We could have stayed here for weeks, but we had to say goodbye to our apartment, our new friends, and Denis. He was the perfect host throughout the week and was even so nice to allow us to stay later than the standard "check out" time. When we did drive away from the apartment, he said goodbye and waved at us until our car was no longer in sight. We told the kids to wave goodbye to "Uncle" Denis. He was part of what made our time in Croatia so wonderful and we will definitely return there someday. After leaving the apartment, we drove into Trogir for lunch. Instead of eating at a restaurant, we returned to the local market for a quick lunch. We then headed to the airport for our flight. Thankfully, we arrived in plenty of time to return our rental car because it took Mike about 30 minutes to get the car turned in. We did all the standard check in procedure at the airport and boarded the plane. Our plane left Split about 3:00 and arrived in Budapest a little before 4:00. Thank God for short flights. Austin fell asleep before take off and didn't even know he was ever in the air. After arriving at the Budapest airport, we went looking for our driver that we had arranged with the apartment owner. We normally just use public transportation, but the apartment had offered this so we decided to take it. Well, no one was to be found. Mike called the numbers we had and talked to several people in broken English. We thought that this was going to be our first experience of not really having a place to stay... that it wasn't going to be legit. Luckily, we finally got a hold of the apartment manager who got us a taxi that took us straight to the apartment. Before leaving the airport, we got money out of the ATM and had to figure out how to convert Hungarian forints to dollars. Before heading to Croatia, we had gotten used to converting euros to dollars. Then, we arrive in Croatia where the money is "kuna". I was just getting the hang of converting that and now we are using Hungarian forints. Its a little more of a challenge because the exchange rate is about 200 forints to $1. It's definitely a little scary at first to type 40,000 into the ATM (to get $200). You pray that you got the exchange rate correct. I'm sure just about the time we leave Budapest I'll have it figured out. Then again, maybe not. After finally arriving at our apartment, we were greeted by Nora. She was very nice and helpful with the local area. After she left, we went to Subway for dinner. Abby had spotted it on our drive to the apartment and this is her all time favorite place to eat in the States. Not exactly "Hungarian" food, but we had tired and hungry kids (Hungry in Hungary!). As we were walking to Subway, Austin kept putting on the breaks and saying "I don't want to get on a subway!" Isn't it funny that before traveling, he would have never thought about the word "subway" in any other way than a place to eat. It has a whole new meaning to him now. We stopped by the grocery store right by our apartment and picked up just a few things since we are only here for 3 nights. All to bed early to rest up for our busy 2 days in Budapest.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Brac Island
June 5th --Today we decided to waste the day away on Brac Island. We left the apartment at 9:30 and drove into Split. The drive was about 40 minutes by the time we arrived at the ferry. We lined our car up in order to drive onto the ferry, but it was a 45 minute wait before the next ferry left. We drove onto the ferry and had to go up a steep incline to park on the top level. It was funny going up the incline with Mike driving a standard, but he did an excellent job getting us up there safely. We exited the car and walked all the way to the top of the ferry to get a good seat for the 45 minute ride. As we were sitting there, we saw a guy with a Texas Tech shirt on and Mike says, "Get your guns up!" He immediately stopped and started talking to us. His name was Brad and he was on vacation with his wife, Nicole, and 2 sons, Bradley and William. As we got to talking we found out so many interesting things: they live in Plano, TX, had done missionary work in Croatia back in 2000 and ended up living in Croatia for a few years, and now have a friend that is doing a development in McKinney, TX called the Adriatic and it is to mimic the town of Supetar. Supetar is the small fishing village on Brac Island where the ferry stops. Also, the developer is the same developer that developed the neighborhood where we lived in Frisco. Small World!!! It was a lot of fun talking to this couple. In fact, our conversation was cut short because the ferry arrived in Supetar and we had to rush to get in our car. We drove off the ferry and immediately started following signs to Bol. Bol is located on the other side of Brac Island and has the local beach. It took us about 30 minutes driving through some small villages. We basically had to drive up the top of the island mountain and back down it to the other side. We arrived in Bol about 1:00 and quickly got our bathing suits on. We headed to the beach where we hung out for the next 3 hours. Everyone had a great time on this beautiful beach in Croatia and enjoyed playing in the Adriatic Sea, although the water is still a little chilly. Before leaving the beach, the kids got an ice cream and then we started to drive back towards Supetar for the 6:00 ferry back to Split. We weren't sure how long it would take us to drive there, get our tickets and then drive onto the ferry. We ended up having some time to kill before the ferry so we walked around the small village of Supetar. There was a playground right on the water so the kids played there for a little while. After the playground, we stopped off at a local bakery for a snack/dinner. The kids just got a pastry, but Mike and I decided to try something local. We shared a Burek and Baklava. Both were very good. Unfortunately, the ferry was late about 30 minutes so we didn't leave Supetar until about 6:30 putting us back in Split about 7:15. Then we successfully navigated our way back to the apartment. We gave the kids some dinner, baths and put them to bed. They had a busy day in the sun and were tired. Mike went outside to talk to Denis about our check out time tomorrow and ended up talking to him for the next couple of hours. Michael from Poland was also engaged in their conversation about the war in Croatia and Bosnia. Mike is all up on his Croatian history now.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The difference a day makes...
June 3rd--We woke up this morning to blue, sunny skies so that only meant one thing for the kids....swimming. I believe they had their bathing suits on by 8:30 and were at the pool. (Side note: Austin calls his bathing suit a bathing "soup") The pool was still pretty chilly, but that didn't stop Abby from getting in. She was in and out of the pool all day long. Mike ran into town again to go to the fruit/vegetable market and picked up some wonderful fresh items. He came back with potatoes that still had all the dirt on them. That's some fresh potatoes. Everything he came home with was so good. We had lunch at the apartment and continued to hang out in the sun. We went down to the beach and threw rocks for a while. The beach area here is covered with little rocks almost pebbles, but we like it because we don't have to worry about washing the sand off everyone. When we came back up from the beach, several other apartment guests were hanging out by the pool. We hung out around the pool for a while interacting with everyone. There's a couple from Germany, another young couple from Poland and another couple who currently lives in Germany but are from Poland. The owner's were also here. We were joking about being able to solve all the worlds problems and have our own United Nations meeting right here in Croatia. They were all very nice and a lot of fun to talk to. One lady, Doris, teaches 3-6 year olds so she really got attached to Abby and Austin. She talked with them, sang with them, and colored with them for a good while tonight. After relaxing all day long, we grilled out on the wood burning oven. Dragor, the owner's father-in-law, who lives on-site, was cooking a Dalmatian meal for one of the other guests. We had some spices that we bought in Morocco, so we used that on some chicken we bought and added it to the grill. It was great and so nice to have an outdoor area to grill and "hang out".
June 4th--Today was basically a repeat from yesterday which was just fine with us. Another relaxing day by the pool and beach. Mike drove the young couple from Poland into Trogir and picked up some more fresh fruit. When he got back, I was engaged in a political conversation with Donutta, originally from Poland, but lives in Germany now. The whole conversation started by me telling her that we were from Texas and she associated Texas with George Bush. If I didn't gain anything else from our conversation, it was that she is a big fan of Obama...very impressed with his make peace, not fight approach. Mike got back from town and engaged in the conversation as well. We have definitely picked a really good time to be Americans traveling around the world because we have encountered many Europeans that are really glad to see Obama as President. It was then time for lunch so we all came inside the apartment for lunch and immediately went back outside. The kids are loving the freedom of being able to come in and out as they please and to be able to run and play too. Austin and I hung out at the beach for a little while throwing rocks while Abby continued to swim in the pool. She is such a fish. We can barely pull her away from the pool. The young Polish couple, Michael and Dominica, were out by the pool during the afternoon and we enjoyed talking with them. They had been to the market and bought a bottle of local wine. It was local made and sold in a soda bottle in the market. They had some earlier in the day and were not sick so we determined it was ok to drink. It was actually really good wine. We chatted with them some about their background. Interestingly, today celebrates the 20th anniversary of independence in Poland, which began the fall of communism. It was very enlightening to listen to them talk about their childhood and some of the tough situations they encountered. They talked about not having money at the end of the month and being given "vouchers" for necessary items (like bread, milk, etc.). However, even if they received a voucher, they might not get the items because the stores might not have enough to go around. Thank God for democracy! It was a quiet evening around the apartment tonight. It appeared that most everyone was eating out so we had the grill to ourselves. We grilled hamburgers tonight and really enjoyed our home cooked meal.
June 4th--Today was basically a repeat from yesterday which was just fine with us. Another relaxing day by the pool and beach. Mike drove the young couple from Poland into Trogir and picked up some more fresh fruit. When he got back, I was engaged in a political conversation with Donutta, originally from Poland, but lives in Germany now. The whole conversation started by me telling her that we were from Texas and she associated Texas with George Bush. If I didn't gain anything else from our conversation, it was that she is a big fan of Obama...very impressed with his make peace, not fight approach. Mike got back from town and engaged in the conversation as well. We have definitely picked a really good time to be Americans traveling around the world because we have encountered many Europeans that are really glad to see Obama as President. It was then time for lunch so we all came inside the apartment for lunch and immediately went back outside. The kids are loving the freedom of being able to come in and out as they please and to be able to run and play too. Austin and I hung out at the beach for a little while throwing rocks while Abby continued to swim in the pool. She is such a fish. We can barely pull her away from the pool. The young Polish couple, Michael and Dominica, were out by the pool during the afternoon and we enjoyed talking with them. They had been to the market and bought a bottle of local wine. It was local made and sold in a soda bottle in the market. They had some earlier in the day and were not sick so we determined it was ok to drink. It was actually really good wine. We chatted with them some about their background. Interestingly, today celebrates the 20th anniversary of independence in Poland, which began the fall of communism. It was very enlightening to listen to them talk about their childhood and some of the tough situations they encountered. They talked about not having money at the end of the month and being given "vouchers" for necessary items (like bread, milk, etc.). However, even if they received a voucher, they might not get the items because the stores might not have enough to go around. Thank God for democracy! It was a quiet evening around the apartment tonight. It appeared that most everyone was eating out so we had the grill to ourselves. We grilled hamburgers tonight and really enjoyed our home cooked meal.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Rainy Croatia
June 1st--We left our Venice apartment at 7:00 a.m. to cross the many bridges (with 4 suitcases) in order to get to the vaporetto stop by 7:30. We boarded the 45 minute vaporetto to the Marco Polo airport in Venice. Once arriving at the airport, we checked our luggage, turned in our tax refund forms, and got some breakfast before our flight. We boarded our flight via the tarmac. We took a bus from the terminal to the plane and when we stepped off the bus and I saw that the plane was small and had propellers, I thought I was going to stroke out. While my fear of flying has improved, it has by no means gone away. It was a small plane that took us to Budapest, Hungary, but we arrived safely and early too. We had about an hour before our next flight so we ate lunch. We then boarded another plane again in the same fashion as before except this time the plane was a little bigger. Still not big enough for me though. Anyway, we sat on the plane for a while before taking off. It started raining in Budapest and then when we landed in Split, Croatia, it was raining pretty heavily. The owner of the apartment we had rented, Denis, was waiting for us at the airport. He drove us to the apartment and was very helpful. He provided us with some drinks, maps, and told us where a local grocery store was located. The apartment is great because it sits right on the water (with awesome views) and has a swimming pool. It is a larger house that has been divided into about 6 apartments that all share the pool and water front. After settling in and realizing the rain was not going to let up, we all decided to walk to the grocery store because we had nothing to eat. The apartment is located in a small village area that has a nearby campsite and therefore a very small grocery store that is about .5 miles from the apartment. About 3/4 of the way to the market, the kids and I decided to head back to the apartment. It was raining so hard we were having a hard time making it and knew that it would be even harder to walk back with groceries. So, Mike just headed to the store. By the time, the kids and I got back to the apartment, our pants were soaked up to our knees and we could pour the water out of our shoes. Mike arrived back with some groceries right about the time the rain was letting up a little bit. It finally stopped raining long enough that the kids played outside for a little bit before dinner. We ate dinner and early to bed. As we were going to bed, it had started raining again and pretty much stormed all throughout the night.
June 2nd--We woke up to more rain and clouds this morning. We just hung out in the apartment in the morning until Denis stopped by about 11:30 letting us know that he would be heading into town (Trogir) about 1:00 and we could go with him. He said he would be there about an hour and we figured that we could find some food for lunch and maybe a larger grocery store. Also, since the weather was so wet, we had thought that we might need to rent a car to go exploring in case we weren't able to enjoy the pool and beach this week. We asked Denis if he could take us to the Split airport and he mentioned that there were many rental car agencies in Trogir. So when Denis picked us up, he mentioned that he needed to stop off for an errand in Trogir. That was fine with us since he was the one driving, although we wondered why he wasn’t just letting us off in the town. When Denis got back in the car, he drove us back to the airport. It was funny though because with a language barrier we weren't exactly sure where he was taking us. We thought we were just going into town until we arrived at the airport. He basically dropped us off there and said "have a good day!" Mike and I looked at each like "hope they have a car to rent" because we certainly hadn't called ahead to check. Luckily, Hertz did have a car to rent and off we went back into Trogir. It turned out great because we could go exploring on our own time. By this point the rain had stopped and it was just cool and cloudy. We went into the town of Trogir and ate a wonderful lunch around the fruit/vegetable market area. Mike and I had Kabasica (a Serbian sausage) in pita bread. It was a nice change from the Italian food over the last 6 weeks. We then walked into the old town of Trogir...saw a lot of boats, a castle, and church. Then, we went to the bigger grocery store in Trogir to stock up for the week. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow...it’s supposed to be sunny. The apartment has a huge outdoor wood burning oven and a German couple who are also staying here were grilling on it tonight. It smelled great!! We bought some food for grilling and are looking forward to grilling out.
June 2nd--We woke up to more rain and clouds this morning. We just hung out in the apartment in the morning until Denis stopped by about 11:30 letting us know that he would be heading into town (Trogir) about 1:00 and we could go with him. He said he would be there about an hour and we figured that we could find some food for lunch and maybe a larger grocery store. Also, since the weather was so wet, we had thought that we might need to rent a car to go exploring in case we weren't able to enjoy the pool and beach this week. We asked Denis if he could take us to the Split airport and he mentioned that there were many rental car agencies in Trogir. So when Denis picked us up, he mentioned that he needed to stop off for an errand in Trogir. That was fine with us since he was the one driving, although we wondered why he wasn’t just letting us off in the town. When Denis got back in the car, he drove us back to the airport. It was funny though because with a language barrier we weren't exactly sure where he was taking us. We thought we were just going into town until we arrived at the airport. He basically dropped us off there and said "have a good day!" Mike and I looked at each like "hope they have a car to rent" because we certainly hadn't called ahead to check. Luckily, Hertz did have a car to rent and off we went back into Trogir. It turned out great because we could go exploring on our own time. By this point the rain had stopped and it was just cool and cloudy. We went into the town of Trogir and ate a wonderful lunch around the fruit/vegetable market area. Mike and I had Kabasica (a Serbian sausage) in pita bread. It was a nice change from the Italian food over the last 6 weeks. We then walked into the old town of Trogir...saw a lot of boats, a castle, and church. Then, we went to the bigger grocery store in Trogir to stock up for the week. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow...it’s supposed to be sunny. The apartment has a huge outdoor wood burning oven and a German couple who are also staying here were grilling on it tonight. It smelled great!! We bought some food for grilling and are looking forward to grilling out.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A Week in Venice
Our apartment in Venice did not have internet so we are updating our entire week. There were a couple of internet points that we came across, but we never really felt like ruining the quaint, charm of Venice by being online. We apologize to those who have been looking for an update…or thought we ran off.
May 25th—Today was a travel day for us. We left Rome at 9:50 and arrived in Venice at 2:15. The train ride was pretty uneventful. We sat next to an older couple that had been traveling since April. Come to find out, they took the Crown Princess ship from Fort Lauderdale to Portugal and ended in Rome. This is the ship that MeMom got on. Once we arrived in Venice, we had to get on a vaporetto (boat) to take us to our apartment. It was about a 20 minute ride to our stop, Ospedale (Hospital stop). It was here that we were greeted by Paolo, one of the apartment managers. We had to cross 3 bridges to arrive at the apartment. Thank goodness Paolo offered to help us with our luggage because by this time we were hot and tired. The apartment is very small in comparison to all the other ones we’ve stayed in. We just came from a spacious 3 bedroom apartment in Rome and our one in Venice could probably fit in the living room/kitchen area of the Rome apartment. But, the apartment sits right on the canal so many boats and gondolas go by all day long. We are on the north side of the island in the more residential area of Venice. There’s also a great gelato place right by our apartment so we pretty much immediately put our bags down and left the apartment for a much needed gelato. After eating gelato, we headed to the grocery store which is right on the water. There’s not much that’s not on the water here though. After putting our grocery’s away, we decided to just walk around and get our bearings of the area. We had no idea where we were going, but stumbled upon a restaurant that Rick Steves recommends. He describes it as the “best canal side seating” so we lucked out and they had a table available for us right on the canal. We ate an early dinner and headed back to the apartment for an early night to bed.
May 26th-- It was a little bit of a restless night because we have no air conditioner and no fan in our apartment and Italy is experiencing July/August temperatures. So, we were up early and going this morning. Probably the earliest we’ve left the apartment since starting to travel. Again, we didn’t have an agenda just were going to wander the streets today. We also decided that we were going to try and find a fan for the apartment. Within about 30 minutes of walking, we found a store comparable to a mini-Walmart. It had a section of fans. We stood there for a while and debated whether to buy it now and carry it back to the apartment or buy it on our way back to the apartment for the day. Well, when we realized that we weren’t the only sweating people in there looking at buying one; we got concerned that they would be sold out. Luckily, we decided to go ahead and buy a fan then because the one we were going to buy was already sold out so we had to pick another one out. It was the best money we’ve spent so far. I was going to dread going to sleep if we didn’t have anything to provide some air circulation. We carried the fan back to the apartment and happily put it together. After that, we went back out and decided to go to the Rialto Bridge. It was quite an impressive bridge in comparison to all the other little bridges we had crossed so far. We walked up the bridge and then started our way back down the main shopping street that leads to St. Mark’s Square. About halfway through, we all decided to go back to the apartment, eat lunch, and take a rest (and enjoy our new fan). After nap time, we enjoyed a refreshing gelato and walked to St. Mark’s Square. The square is the biggest square/plaza that we have seen so far. It is very relaxing though. After visiting the tourist information office, we decided to enjoy the atmosphere of the square and found a nice café to have a drink at. The kids enjoyed playing with the pigeons and dancing to the live music. We had found the Hard Rock Café earlier and the kids really wanted to eat there. So, after enjoying our time on St. Mark’s Square, we went to eat dinner at the Hard Rock. It’s just so different to see gondolas and boats all “parked” outside the restaurant. I’ve commented several times since arriving in Venice about how unique it is to be in a city that has boats for its mode of transportation. It’s such a different experience that is for sure. Our apartment is near the hospital and the most unique has to be the ambulance boats. We are glad that we can walk to most of the places from our apartment though. So, after dinner we walked back to our apartment and all huddled around the one fan. The fan is great to have, but it certainly did not change the temperature outside though. It was another hot day in Italy, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.
May 27th—We all slept much better with the fan. In fact, Mike commented that he woke up several times throughout the night because he got “cold”. I think he was just in shock because he wasn’t sweating nor having to not move for fear of sweating. We had originally planned to go to Lido today where there is a beach. We were going to kill two birds with one stone: escape the heat and have a fun day for the kids. But, Mother Nature had other plans for us. It was cooler this morning and a little cloudy. All our television stations are in Italian, but we can still decipher the weather and it called for thunderstorms today. So, we decided to go to Murano instead. As we were arriving at our vaporetto stop, it was very windy and we could see the dark clouds in the distance along with some lightning. We weren’t sure which direction Murano was, but we were hoping it wasn’t in the direction of the dark clouds. We almost didn’t head to Murano for that reason. We are so glad that we didn’t change our minds because the vaporetto headed the opposite direction from the clouds and it ended up being a very pleasant day for shopping. It’s amazing how hot we were yesterday and there were times today that we were a little chilly, but nobody complained. The weather definitely helped our wonderful experience in Murano. After disembarking the vaporetto, we walked the main street that is lined with glass shops. I’m pretty sure I walked into every single one of them. It gets to be a little overwhelming at times, but it’s amazing at how a lot of the shops seemed to have something unique that the others didn’t. I have to wonder how they compete with each other because a lot of the stuff is the same and pretty much the same price. For you Pandora collectors, it was fun to see a cheaper version of Murano glass beads. We were also on the hunt for a Santa. We have managed to get one in every country so far and since Venice is our last stop in Italy, this was our last chance. It’s amazing the choices we ended up having. Murano was a fun shopping trip! After arriving back in Venice, we stopped at our favorite gelateria by our apartment before dropping our bags off. We then went to get Austin’s haircut at Coiffeur Benito(thanks, Rick Steves). Then, the kids really wanted to go back to the plaza by our apartment and play. It’s amazing how kids can just run around and entertain themselves with nothing, but other kids. Since our apartment is in the more residential area, that plaza was filled with other local kids. Abby & Austin adapt so well to all the kids even without speaking the language. They didn’t want to leave even when we said that we were going to pick up pizza for dinner, but when they learned that it was movie night, that seemed to work. We all ate pizza and watched “Bolt”. It was a fun day! Mike's commentary: 3 months ago I could not have told you anything about European Football, but now I have a greater appreciation. Tonight was the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United. After movie night and putting the kids to bed, I found a local pub and wandered into watch the game. I had anticipated that with so many tourists in Venice this would be filled with English ManU fans. However, it was almost completely filled with locals and all seemed to be supporting Barcelona. This was great because after our time in Barcelona and loving the city, Barcelona had become my favorite to win. I ended up meeting an American and Parisian who were on business. Stefan, the Parisian, kept me informed on some of the nuisances of the game that I still have not learned. He also provided some great political / cultural discussion at the end of the game.
May 28th-- We awoke to clear, sunny skies today. That meant one thing…beach day. We headed to Lido beach. It was about a 20 minute vaporetto ride to the stop in Lido and then about a mile down the main street to the beach. Notice I said street? Yes, Lido allows cars. Although Lido was a very pretty town, it loses the Venice charm by allowing cars. We spent the entire day at the beach. The kids enjoyed playing with other kids that spoke English. They played a long time on the paddle boats that were parked on the beach and collected seashells. Abby collected 148 seashells. I’ve never seen a beach like this that had an ample amount of seashells just sitting on the beach. She didn’t even have to go digging for them. Mike and I enjoyed just relaxing on the lounge chairs. It was after 5:00 before we decided we had enough of sand and sun. We headed back down the main street to the vaporetto and back to our apartment. We all tried to quickly take showers, but that wasn’t so easy. The hot water heater in the apartment holds enough water for one shower and it takes about 30 minutes to heat the entire tank. It’s made showering very interesting. We finally all got showered and went out for a wonderful meal near our apartment. It was a local restaurant with homemade pastas and seafood. After a big meal and a lot of sun, we all had no problems going to bed.
May 29th—We woke up this morning to cooler weather. It actually felt like spring time in Venice and the hot weather earlier in the week was becoming a distant memory. Today, MeMom arrived in Venice from her 12 day Mediterranean cruise. We met up with her and Gilda about 11:00 at their hotel. From there, we walked through St. Mark’s Square and then ate lunch on the street by their hotel. After lunch, we separated in order to go put Austin down for a nap. Austin doesn’t nap much anymore, but we were planning on a late dinner and gondola ride tonight and so thought it would be best. While Austin was napping, I went to the grocery store and then picked up our favorite gelato for the day. Once he got up from his nap, we met back up with MeMom and did a little more shopping. We went to dinner at Trattoria “da Girgio”, the canal side restaurant we had eaten at early in the week. Mike, MeMom, and I shared the wonderful seabass. It was baked in the oven and was very fresh. After dinner, we had our gondola ride. It was so peaceful and relaxation. We really enjoyed our ride and our Gondolier, Christen was very good (on the eyes!). He gave us a great tour and was very good at entertaining the kids. We even ended up riding right by our apartment so that was really neat. Since the gondola ride was so relaxing, we called it a night and all went to bed.
May 30th—Today, we had plans of doing some sightseeing, but ended up shopping instead. There were a few things we all wanted to look at around Rialto Bridge. Venice is an amazing shopping town. The Murano Glass items are absolutely beautiful. We could have spent so much more time looking at all the beautiful pieces. Mike commented that the reason Venice is so expensive is from all the money spent shopping. Anyway, after having about as much as we could take of the crowds, we headed back toward our apartment and enjoyed a gelato in the plaza while watching the kids play. After our nice snack, we went back to MeMom’s hotel in order to figure out how she was going to get all her purchases and our purchases back with her. We sent back our breakable purchases with her and are still waiting to hear if they made them back safely. By this time, it was dinnertime and the kids were hungry. We said our goodbye’s to Gilda as the rest of us went out for a sandwich and some wine. We enjoyed our couple of hours with MeMom over a few glasses of wine and finished off in St. Mark’s Square at dusk. It was a nice end to our time with her. We walked her back to her hotel and said our goodbye’s. It was hard to say goodbye.
May 31st—We had nothing on our agenda for today. We had spent enough time in Venice, but it was a very nice down week. The combination of no cars and pedestrian streets with the boats and canals make it a very relaxing city. We thought there was a boat race going on by St. Mark’s Square so we walked over there about 10:30, but no boat race. We got a lot of wind and cool weather instead. We actually had on long pants and long sleeves today…a far cry from the weather earlier in the week. So, we decided to go back to the apartment for lunch and a movie. After the movie, we went back to St. Mark’s Square to walk through St. Mark’s Basilica and rode the elevator to the top of Campanile, the bell tower. Campanile provided us a breathtaking view of the entire island of Venice. We saw Lido, Murano, etc. After coming back down the tower, we split up. Abby and I walked through a couple more stores. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything else. Mike and Austin went to an Irish Pub to watch the Fiorentina v. Milan football match and to check e-mail in order to get the flight information for our flight tomorrow. Abby and I met back up with them at the pub. By the time we got ready to leave, it was raining. So, we ran back to the apartment and Mike went by himself to check out the vaporetto information for us to get to the airport in the morning. We then all ate pizza for dinner and enjoyed our last gelato for dessert. It was a great way to end our time in Italy!
May 25th—Today was a travel day for us. We left Rome at 9:50 and arrived in Venice at 2:15. The train ride was pretty uneventful. We sat next to an older couple that had been traveling since April. Come to find out, they took the Crown Princess ship from Fort Lauderdale to Portugal and ended in Rome. This is the ship that MeMom got on. Once we arrived in Venice, we had to get on a vaporetto (boat) to take us to our apartment. It was about a 20 minute ride to our stop, Ospedale (Hospital stop). It was here that we were greeted by Paolo, one of the apartment managers. We had to cross 3 bridges to arrive at the apartment. Thank goodness Paolo offered to help us with our luggage because by this time we were hot and tired. The apartment is very small in comparison to all the other ones we’ve stayed in. We just came from a spacious 3 bedroom apartment in Rome and our one in Venice could probably fit in the living room/kitchen area of the Rome apartment. But, the apartment sits right on the canal so many boats and gondolas go by all day long. We are on the north side of the island in the more residential area of Venice. There’s also a great gelato place right by our apartment so we pretty much immediately put our bags down and left the apartment for a much needed gelato. After eating gelato, we headed to the grocery store which is right on the water. There’s not much that’s not on the water here though. After putting our grocery’s away, we decided to just walk around and get our bearings of the area. We had no idea where we were going, but stumbled upon a restaurant that Rick Steves recommends. He describes it as the “best canal side seating” so we lucked out and they had a table available for us right on the canal. We ate an early dinner and headed back to the apartment for an early night to bed.
May 26th-- It was a little bit of a restless night because we have no air conditioner and no fan in our apartment and Italy is experiencing July/August temperatures. So, we were up early and going this morning. Probably the earliest we’ve left the apartment since starting to travel. Again, we didn’t have an agenda just were going to wander the streets today. We also decided that we were going to try and find a fan for the apartment. Within about 30 minutes of walking, we found a store comparable to a mini-Walmart. It had a section of fans. We stood there for a while and debated whether to buy it now and carry it back to the apartment or buy it on our way back to the apartment for the day. Well, when we realized that we weren’t the only sweating people in there looking at buying one; we got concerned that they would be sold out. Luckily, we decided to go ahead and buy a fan then because the one we were going to buy was already sold out so we had to pick another one out. It was the best money we’ve spent so far. I was going to dread going to sleep if we didn’t have anything to provide some air circulation. We carried the fan back to the apartment and happily put it together. After that, we went back out and decided to go to the Rialto Bridge. It was quite an impressive bridge in comparison to all the other little bridges we had crossed so far. We walked up the bridge and then started our way back down the main shopping street that leads to St. Mark’s Square. About halfway through, we all decided to go back to the apartment, eat lunch, and take a rest (and enjoy our new fan). After nap time, we enjoyed a refreshing gelato and walked to St. Mark’s Square. The square is the biggest square/plaza that we have seen so far. It is very relaxing though. After visiting the tourist information office, we decided to enjoy the atmosphere of the square and found a nice café to have a drink at. The kids enjoyed playing with the pigeons and dancing to the live music. We had found the Hard Rock Café earlier and the kids really wanted to eat there. So, after enjoying our time on St. Mark’s Square, we went to eat dinner at the Hard Rock. It’s just so different to see gondolas and boats all “parked” outside the restaurant. I’ve commented several times since arriving in Venice about how unique it is to be in a city that has boats for its mode of transportation. It’s such a different experience that is for sure. Our apartment is near the hospital and the most unique has to be the ambulance boats. We are glad that we can walk to most of the places from our apartment though. So, after dinner we walked back to our apartment and all huddled around the one fan. The fan is great to have, but it certainly did not change the temperature outside though. It was another hot day in Italy, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.
May 27th—We all slept much better with the fan. In fact, Mike commented that he woke up several times throughout the night because he got “cold”. I think he was just in shock because he wasn’t sweating nor having to not move for fear of sweating. We had originally planned to go to Lido today where there is a beach. We were going to kill two birds with one stone: escape the heat and have a fun day for the kids. But, Mother Nature had other plans for us. It was cooler this morning and a little cloudy. All our television stations are in Italian, but we can still decipher the weather and it called for thunderstorms today. So, we decided to go to Murano instead. As we were arriving at our vaporetto stop, it was very windy and we could see the dark clouds in the distance along with some lightning. We weren’t sure which direction Murano was, but we were hoping it wasn’t in the direction of the dark clouds. We almost didn’t head to Murano for that reason. We are so glad that we didn’t change our minds because the vaporetto headed the opposite direction from the clouds and it ended up being a very pleasant day for shopping. It’s amazing how hot we were yesterday and there were times today that we were a little chilly, but nobody complained. The weather definitely helped our wonderful experience in Murano. After disembarking the vaporetto, we walked the main street that is lined with glass shops. I’m pretty sure I walked into every single one of them. It gets to be a little overwhelming at times, but it’s amazing at how a lot of the shops seemed to have something unique that the others didn’t. I have to wonder how they compete with each other because a lot of the stuff is the same and pretty much the same price. For you Pandora collectors, it was fun to see a cheaper version of Murano glass beads. We were also on the hunt for a Santa. We have managed to get one in every country so far and since Venice is our last stop in Italy, this was our last chance. It’s amazing the choices we ended up having. Murano was a fun shopping trip! After arriving back in Venice, we stopped at our favorite gelateria by our apartment before dropping our bags off. We then went to get Austin’s haircut at Coiffeur Benito(thanks, Rick Steves). Then, the kids really wanted to go back to the plaza by our apartment and play. It’s amazing how kids can just run around and entertain themselves with nothing, but other kids. Since our apartment is in the more residential area, that plaza was filled with other local kids. Abby & Austin adapt so well to all the kids even without speaking the language. They didn’t want to leave even when we said that we were going to pick up pizza for dinner, but when they learned that it was movie night, that seemed to work. We all ate pizza and watched “Bolt”. It was a fun day! Mike's commentary: 3 months ago I could not have told you anything about European Football, but now I have a greater appreciation. Tonight was the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United. After movie night and putting the kids to bed, I found a local pub and wandered into watch the game. I had anticipated that with so many tourists in Venice this would be filled with English ManU fans. However, it was almost completely filled with locals and all seemed to be supporting Barcelona. This was great because after our time in Barcelona and loving the city, Barcelona had become my favorite to win. I ended up meeting an American and Parisian who were on business. Stefan, the Parisian, kept me informed on some of the nuisances of the game that I still have not learned. He also provided some great political / cultural discussion at the end of the game.
May 28th-- We awoke to clear, sunny skies today. That meant one thing…beach day. We headed to Lido beach. It was about a 20 minute vaporetto ride to the stop in Lido and then about a mile down the main street to the beach. Notice I said street? Yes, Lido allows cars. Although Lido was a very pretty town, it loses the Venice charm by allowing cars. We spent the entire day at the beach. The kids enjoyed playing with other kids that spoke English. They played a long time on the paddle boats that were parked on the beach and collected seashells. Abby collected 148 seashells. I’ve never seen a beach like this that had an ample amount of seashells just sitting on the beach. She didn’t even have to go digging for them. Mike and I enjoyed just relaxing on the lounge chairs. It was after 5:00 before we decided we had enough of sand and sun. We headed back down the main street to the vaporetto and back to our apartment. We all tried to quickly take showers, but that wasn’t so easy. The hot water heater in the apartment holds enough water for one shower and it takes about 30 minutes to heat the entire tank. It’s made showering very interesting. We finally all got showered and went out for a wonderful meal near our apartment. It was a local restaurant with homemade pastas and seafood. After a big meal and a lot of sun, we all had no problems going to bed.
May 29th—We woke up this morning to cooler weather. It actually felt like spring time in Venice and the hot weather earlier in the week was becoming a distant memory. Today, MeMom arrived in Venice from her 12 day Mediterranean cruise. We met up with her and Gilda about 11:00 at their hotel. From there, we walked through St. Mark’s Square and then ate lunch on the street by their hotel. After lunch, we separated in order to go put Austin down for a nap. Austin doesn’t nap much anymore, but we were planning on a late dinner and gondola ride tonight and so thought it would be best. While Austin was napping, I went to the grocery store and then picked up our favorite gelato for the day. Once he got up from his nap, we met back up with MeMom and did a little more shopping. We went to dinner at Trattoria “da Girgio”, the canal side restaurant we had eaten at early in the week. Mike, MeMom, and I shared the wonderful seabass. It was baked in the oven and was very fresh. After dinner, we had our gondola ride. It was so peaceful and relaxation. We really enjoyed our ride and our Gondolier, Christen was very good (on the eyes!). He gave us a great tour and was very good at entertaining the kids. We even ended up riding right by our apartment so that was really neat. Since the gondola ride was so relaxing, we called it a night and all went to bed.
May 30th—Today, we had plans of doing some sightseeing, but ended up shopping instead. There were a few things we all wanted to look at around Rialto Bridge. Venice is an amazing shopping town. The Murano Glass items are absolutely beautiful. We could have spent so much more time looking at all the beautiful pieces. Mike commented that the reason Venice is so expensive is from all the money spent shopping. Anyway, after having about as much as we could take of the crowds, we headed back toward our apartment and enjoyed a gelato in the plaza while watching the kids play. After our nice snack, we went back to MeMom’s hotel in order to figure out how she was going to get all her purchases and our purchases back with her. We sent back our breakable purchases with her and are still waiting to hear if they made them back safely. By this time, it was dinnertime and the kids were hungry. We said our goodbye’s to Gilda as the rest of us went out for a sandwich and some wine. We enjoyed our couple of hours with MeMom over a few glasses of wine and finished off in St. Mark’s Square at dusk. It was a nice end to our time with her. We walked her back to her hotel and said our goodbye’s. It was hard to say goodbye.
May 31st—We had nothing on our agenda for today. We had spent enough time in Venice, but it was a very nice down week. The combination of no cars and pedestrian streets with the boats and canals make it a very relaxing city. We thought there was a boat race going on by St. Mark’s Square so we walked over there about 10:30, but no boat race. We got a lot of wind and cool weather instead. We actually had on long pants and long sleeves today…a far cry from the weather earlier in the week. So, we decided to go back to the apartment for lunch and a movie. After the movie, we went back to St. Mark’s Square to walk through St. Mark’s Basilica and rode the elevator to the top of Campanile, the bell tower. Campanile provided us a breathtaking view of the entire island of Venice. We saw Lido, Murano, etc. After coming back down the tower, we split up. Abby and I walked through a couple more stores. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything else. Mike and Austin went to an Irish Pub to watch the Fiorentina v. Milan football match and to check e-mail in order to get the flight information for our flight tomorrow. Abby and I met back up with them at the pub. By the time we got ready to leave, it was raining. So, we ran back to the apartment and Mike went by himself to check out the vaporetto information for us to get to the airport in the morning. We then all ate pizza for dinner and enjoyed our last gelato for dessert. It was a great way to end our time in Italy!
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