On 2 Legs

We're spending the last four night of our journey in Rome. I expected Rome to be like Paris and London. And I was right, even down to the crappy hotel. I guess Rome proper is supposed to be like other big, touristy, metropolitan areas and we are firmly of the opinion that we'll skip all big metro areas on future journeys. We did get to see the Colosseum. And inadvertently witnessed the 2018 Giro d'Italia bicycle race. Chris Froome won (whoever that might be ☺️). But we were not able to get a sense of the people until we skipped the hotel (we stayed one night out of a 4 night booking) and headed out to an AirBnB five miles outside of Rome proper. That's where we got to really see Rome. Like the tiny, thriving mom and pop shop with the slabs of meat hanging from the wall.  The itty-bitty basement restaurant with the incredible Peruvian food, whose owner and cook was a quintessential grandma in looks and manner.  The pizzeria whose owner gave us this little dumpling thing ...

Pompeii was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt Vesuvius.  That was the extent of my knowledge of this area. Now, I almost wish I didn't know as much. This wasn't a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary. This was a thriving metropolis with not just homes and shops, but large structures, such as the ampitheater and the forum. The ruins were so extensive that we spent over 5 hours exploring them and only saw approximately 50% of them. As we walked perfectly laid out streets, marveling at the beautiful frescos, the mosaic tile floors, the stonework, the freize, the ingenious drainage, even the store signage (like "Vesuvino", a wine merchant's and earliest pun master), we began to get a feel for daily life in Pompeii. And we wondered why they would build such a bustling city next to a volcano. The simple answer is that they did not know.  There had been some tremors in the few years preceding the eruption, then an earthquake that did a large amou...

We choose to visit Trieste on a whim. We had 3 days to kill and originally planned to visiting Slovenia and/or Croatia but couldn't find lodging. Then we saw the name "Trieste" on the map near the Slovania border. My nieces were born while the family lived in Cote de Trieste (NJ). Why not check it out? Best decision this whole trip! The town is just lovely and the people are what you would expect from a sleepy little Italian town.  We got into another AirBnB, this one with a 4-person elevator - - positively luxurious! -  - and got to experience living as a Trieste local. And, as a local, we got pizza from the shop at the end of the block. Except ordering pizza in Italy is not as easy as one would think. When ordering a mushroom pizza, I've never been asked what kind of mushroom (they had 4 different kinds!). Same with onions. Want sauce? You better ask for it. Italians are very specific about toppings! But all's well that ends well and this ended with the most per...

We're sitting at a lovely restaurant at a piazza in Pompei, the four of us sipping some local wine and people watching. Dennis: "Wow. All those little kids are speaking Ita... Oh." Cue hysterical laughter.

In just four days, I've learned an incredible amount about this little jewel. That's not saying much, considering all I knew about Venice was that they had gondolas. The first thing we found as we arrived was "Snowdude and the 7 tall guys". Seriously. We got pics. There's two sections to Venice: island and mainland. The mainland part is called Mestre, whereas the island side actually bears the name Venice. And it's not an island. It's a lagoon with 188 islands separated by canals and joined by 400 bridges.  The most famous of the bridges is Rialto, which comes from the Italian phrase for "high river". It is a veritable maze of byways and bridges. The main thoroughfare being the Grand Canal. It just so happens that we were there on Saturday, Royal Wedding day. If you look closely, this group of boaters were wearing Harry & Meghan face masks. Others were wearing corgi masks. So we got to experience the royals, after all. 😁 We didn't ride ...

Welcome to a special series! In these we'll post all the funnies that happened but we forgot to included them elsewhere. So, here's the first one: While in Paris, I walked past a restaurant menu board that said "Onion Soup" and I thought to myself "Hey, they forgot to write the Fre... Oh." ~ Irene

So, remember how I said I would be posting more? Yeeeeah, me either. *Awkward silence* ... Anyways, time to fill you guys in on what you may have missed! I'll just be giving highlights, that way you guys don't have to sit through a novella of pointless chatter. So here we go! Firstly, let's talk Barcelona. Because frankly, I didn't want to leave. We had a lovely time, with lovely food, and fun shenanigans, mostly involving my dad and I. See, my mom and sister were telling my dad and I about a nice market they went to, so naturally I wanted to go, and my dad decided to come along because I probably would've gotten myself killed otherwise. Now, they said it was right around the corner. However, both my mom and sister are notoriously bad with directions. So when we went around the block and didn't see it, we decided to just keep walking until we found it. And we certainly found something. We somehow wandered into a HUGE shopping complex that was b...

Betty White at the Charlotte Amtrak station. "Mushy peas" on a London restaurant's menu. The open air urinals in Paris. Very revealing. Toilet booth in the middle of the sidewalk, Paris. Pay toilets everywhere! The grumpy French waiter who ended up being very nice after Peekaloo tried ordering in French. The waiter at Xorús who's master of the upsell. Boobs on display at Gare de Lyon. Shrinkage in Barcelona. Also, free WiFi at the beach. (Wee-fee! 😂)

After the expensive lesson I learned about booking tickets early, I stopped at a train station near our AirBnB the day after our arrival in Paris and purchased tickets to Barcelona (that's when we saw the guy with the minute kilt). This time, the booking agent was super helpful, explaining that France was having train strikes and helping me find a train for the day I needed that would get me to Barcelona while it was still daylight.  With all my focus on just getting the reservation done, I completely forgot to ask for first class tickets (we pre-purchased Eurail passes before we left the US which come with first class). We went to Gare de Lyon extra early to allow for Zoey to acclimate and for me to try to upgrade the tickets. I got the upgrades done and we got to ride on the upper deck. Unlike Virgin Rail, the Eurostar (London to Paris) and SCFN (Paris to Barcelona) offer no free food for first - our any - class. But the view was quite lovely, from rolling hills, to the Balreatic...