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Friday, August 7, 2009

Padua

August 2, 2009
Day trip from Verona to Padua. Padua is where Shakespeare's tamable shrew is from! This city was so lovely and full of beautiful things to see.
Beautiful bridge!
Beautiful building!
Beautiful park!
Beautiful people! :) haha!
Not something you see everyday!
Beautiful river!
Amazing facade!
Beautiful Renaissance church!
Make sure you keep reading! We are on a roll catching up!

Quick stop in Brescia

August 1, 2009
After Milan, we weren't quite sure where to go! So we spent the night in Brescia, a fairly large town on the way to Verona. We stayed in a small hotel and the first evening we did nothing! We got some groceries, ate some bread and cheese while watching BBC World and MTV Italia! And it was wonderful!
The next day, we took a trip through town and found some really surprising and amazing things!
Our first stop was the Museo di Santa Giulia, an archeological museum that was one of the best that we have seen. One the site they had excavated two Roman houses where the flooring and basic floorplan still exist! It was crazy to walk around this place where people had lived about 2000 years ago. Nothing about the homes were primative either, they were incredibly elaborate with mosaics covering the floors and frescoes (only remnants remain) on the walls and ceiling! A little ways away from the museum are remains of a Roman theater and Capitoleum, the picture above.
Part of it had to be reconstructed, but that did not take away from how impressive it was.
We packed ourselves a lunch for the day and found a nice spot on a porch of a beautiful building, partly designed by Palladio. About halfway through our lunch, three policemen walked up to us and said that it is illegal to eat on a national monument. So if we didn't want a 120 euro ticket, we needed to move!
All over Italy is beautiful art! Every church and every museum has amazing paintings, sculpture and architecture! This painting is by Titian, one of Erika's favorite artists and his works can be seen in places all over.
Side by side were two cathedrals, this older one which was really interesting. It's floorplan was circular instead of cross shaped and it such a different feeling than any other church we've been in.
This is inside a cathedral with an alterpiece by Titan in it. We have discovered that there is way too much art in Italy and impossible to keep it all in good condition. While some things are amazing to look at, others are disapointing because of their poor condition. This painting was one of those disapointing ones because of the dirt and soot covering it.
Overall, Brescia was an excellend surprise!

Como and Bergamo

July 29, 2009
Day trip to Como!
Como, on Lake Como, was about an hour train ride from Milan. It was a nice little town, great for walking around for the day.
Lake Como is quite small and is surrounded by small towns. There was an airport on the water and we watched a plane take off.
Although Como was quite small, their cathedral was amazing! It was a great surprise in the city and it offered a cool place to sit and escape the heat for awhile.
At night, our host Matteo cooked dinner for us, pasta carbanara which was delicious! Matteo was hosting a couple of other people while we were there. The first night we met two girls from Finland who were great to talk to. The next two nights, we met two Brazilians! and the last night a really nice girl from Germany!
July 30, 2009
Day trip to Bergamo!
Bergamo was another day trip from Milan about an hour away on the train. While Como was nice, we liked Bergamo much better!
To get to the old part of the city, you climb! But the character of the old town and the amazing views were well worth it!
Of course we visited the churches in the town. Most of the churches are free to enter and house some of the best architecture and art in each city.
For lunch we found a little pizzaria and if you look closely, you can see that the pizza on the left has sliced hot dog on it and the pizza on the right has french fries! Both were quite delicious
As many churches as we have seen, each one still amazes us. The ornamentation is beyond ridiculous and we find ourselves sitting for long periods of time looking around in amazement!
We are trying to catch up....keep reading!

Milan Madness

July 28, 2009
So we totally loaded our pictures backwards, so we will take you through our day in Milan starting with the end and working our way to the beginning!
In the evening, there was a giant couchsurfing aperativo! There were over 50 people there, couch surfing hosts and guests all mingling around an outdoor cafe. While there, we met a few travelers from the US and now are in contact with them through couch surfing!
Our last tourist thing of our day in Milan, was going to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper painting. It is really difficult to see the painting. They only allow 20 people to see the painting for 15 minutes at a time. You have to request tickets at least 2 weeks in advance and be flexible with your schedule. Going through the church to see the painting, we felt like we were being quarantened. We had to go through a series of rooms where you could not get through one without being locked in the previous one for several minutes.
But it was all worth it! Even though the painting is in really bad shape, it started deteriorating during Leonardo's lifetime, you can still feel the emotion.
This is the church that houses the Last Supper painting. It was almost totally destroyed in WWII and miraculously the wall with the painting survived.
Earlier in the day we went to a museum housed in an old castle!
Michelangelo's Pieta that he was working on up to a few days before his death. For all of you art history buffs out there, it really shows his progression from his earlier years. For the majority of his art career, Michelangelo was all about design and pre planning for his works. He would spend more time developing sketches than actually creating the piece of art. But this sculpture shows that later in his life, he was creating art without any design or pre planning. This sculpture isn't finished, you can still see the chisel marks and areas where he changed his mind about the design.
Across from the Duomo is this famous shopping mall, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. It is full of ritzy shops, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc. Most elegant of them all, McDonalds! Yes, McDonalds managed to land a spot inside next to all of these glamorous shops.
The Duomo had the most impressive stained glass windows! They were gigantic. This one is made up of hundreds of small scenes, each rectangle is roughly 2' x 1' and is a scene from the life of Christ!
Most of the churches in Italy do not allow pictures to be taken. But each church varies in how much they enforce these rules. We were not supposed to take photos here, but everyone did and no one said anything. Other places have been really strict and have guards around to yell at people.
Impressive, isn't it! The is the outside of the Duomo, much different than most of the cathedrals we have seen. It is the third largest cathedral in Europe and dwarfs the Notre Dame in Paris!
Milan really surprised us! We had been told there wasn't much to do or see, but we filled an entire day with great memories and beautiful sites!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Internet Disappointment

Hi everyone!

We are really sorry for the lack of posts, but have not been able to use any free internet. And internet is not cheap! We would love to keep everyone posted with pictures and stories, but it just hasn't been possible. There's not enough time to explain what we've done, so we will sum up:

4 days in Milan with day trips to Como and Bergamo. Milan's duomo was so impressive! It is the third largest cathedral in Europe! Both Como and Bergamo were beautiful cities however, not much to do. Como had an amazing cathedral despite the city's small size. Italy definitely surprised us with its heat!

1 day in Brescia. Awesome archeological museum with beautiful remains of old Roman Villas! and a Capitoleum and Roman theater! Lucky find considering we never intended on going!

1 day in Padua where Shakespeare's tameable shrew was from. The city was one of our favorites full of old cathedrals much different from France. The churches are built with Renaissance designs and not Gothic which makes them much simpler and lighter, overall they were much warmer to be in even though their size is comparable to Gothic structures if not bigger.

Today we are spending the day in fair Verona where two starcrossed lovers took their lives.

Tomorrow we are heading for Venice for a couple of days! After Venice we are couchsurfing so hopefully we will be able to use a computer to catch up on photos :) Again, we are really sorry, once we can load photos again, we will try to post more than once a day, so be sure to check old posts!

Miss everyone!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hikin up a mountain!

On Saturday night, we saw the strangest thing, a small parade of cows through the center of Interlaken! They were giant cows with huge cowbells around their necks that would ring quite loud as they walked through the street. We had no idea what this was for or why it was going on, like most people on the street, we just stopped and stared!
On Sunday, we decided to go on a hike up a mountain, AJ really wanted to be on top of a mountain before we left! Behind Interlaken, was a large hill with a restaurant on top. Most people take the funicular to get to the top, but decided to make the trek! Here we are about half way up with the town below us.
Most of the walk was in the shade which helped us out a lot, but in the sun it was quite hot! Every once in awhile there would be a clearing in the path that would give us amazing views of lakes, other mountains, and the towns.
We couldn't believe our eyes!
We got such an amazing view of Jungfrau!
We made it! After almost 2 hours of hiking, we made it to the top! Harden Kulm was the name of the spot we finally made it to. And of course the restaurant was really expensive! Around 25 francs per plate! Ouch! Luckily they had a little food shack next to the restaurant for people like us! We enjoyed a couple of really tasty sandwiches and explored a little more of the top before hiking down. The hike down was terribly difficult! Much more than the hike up! It was incredibly steep with all different kinds of terrain, rocky, big tree roots, water, gravel, mud! It took us almost as long to go down as it did to go up!
Funny Farm is where we were staying in Interlaken. It was a really unique place on the edge of town. It was a combination of a hotel and a hostel, you could book any of the things you see on the sign, it had a crazy pool with a slide ramp, a bar, restaurant, and a giant St. Bernard dog!
On ???? evening we arrived in Milan and met our couchsurfing host, Matteo. We headed for an aperative which is one of the most amazing ideas ever! It is at a bar, you order a drink, which is a little pricey, but they there is a buffet and you get unlimited food! All kinds of food! Quiches, pasta, fruit, bread, grilled vegetables! It was so delicious and much appreciated after eating bread and cheese for three days!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

There and Back Again, Our Tale

We went canyoning a few days ago which constists of rappeling, ziplining, jumping, and rocksliding through a canyon filled with glacial water.
The first rappel is 150 down into the water and a little nerve-wracking!
Our first rappel and of course AJ is selected to go first. Quite scary when you have been given all of 5 minutes worth of instruction.
AJ at the bottom watching Erika begin her descent. She looked like a pro!
Some of the beautiful, yet dangerous scenery we passed through.
The group trying not to fall into the water and make fools of themselves while trying to keep up with the guides.
No comment.
We got to slide down this rock face on our backs which was pretty awesome! Especially because you didn't know where you were landing til you hit the water.
The slip and slide swiss style, not the kind you see in your backyard.
Erika on one of the first jumps. They gave you a specific technique to jump in otherwise you would hit the floor of the canyon possibly breaking your feet or shoulders.
This is the "big" jump which Erika was not allowed to go off of. The guides did not know she was a diver so they babied her a lot. Because Erika is so small she would get tossed around a lot by the rapids. The jump was probably 7 meters high and the target area AJ had to jump into was a 5 foot radius.
The leap of faith.
The huge boulder in the water is barely held in place by other rocks. It looked like it was about to crash into the water below at any moment but our fearless guides assured us it probably wouldn't.
AJ on the zipline. We could barely stay still because the rocks were so slippery and the water was rushing beneath our feet. You can not see it but the water is about 30 feet below us.
Erika on the zipline that went between massive rocks that were barely suspended by other rocks. Kind of sketchy but totally worth the risk!
The group as we trekked through this ridiculous obstacle course of sharp rocks and raging waters. It was hard to see most of the rocks because they were under rapids.
Erika in her Maus helmet, she got it because she was by far the smallest one in the group. She had just backflipped into the water impressing the guides greatly.
This is AJ doing a backflip off of a zipline into the water. We had to wait til the instructors told us we were in the right spot to jump in because there are rocks all around us except for that small little patch.
The entire group that went with us and they were all really cool, especially our two guides, the ones in the red and black helmets. They are pretty crazy and would leap from rock to rock much faster than the rest of us.
The cute couple halfway into the middle of a waterfall. The water was frigid and numbed your hands the moment it touched because it is all glacier water.
Overall an unbelieveable day with lots of adventure. We were exhausted after the 5 hour workout but will remember it forever! We definitely recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat!
Hope you enjoyed our excursion and we will try to keep updating and you up to where we actually are, Milan!