September 25
As you might remember Alan and I forgot to get our Indian Visa in NYC and have been on an adventure to try and obtain it in Italy ever since. For the week we were at the hotel in the mountains in the back of our minds we were wondering when our passport would turn up. It was supposed to arrive Tuesday. Wednesday we emailed Fabio, our contact at the Milan Indian Embassy. We heard back from him that everything was fine and we would receive it the next day. Thursday passed. Friday, crunch time, the hotel closes for the season on Saturday and we have to be out early that day and had been planning to head to Greece. We got on the phone with Fabio, he was so sorry, it was not his fault but our passports were in a town outside Naples just under 2 hours away, he promised several times that he was positive they were there, he emailed directions and we had no choice but to hop in our rental car and head West. Alan had a bad feeling about this day from the start, I tried to make light of the situation, I mean at least our passports were not still in Milan!
About an hour and a half later we are making good time, but cannot seem to find the place. (Alan forgot to get the name of where were we going so we were just going by the address). Most of Italy does not believe in street signs, house numbers or any form of identification to help you know where you are and where you need to go. It turns out our address was for the town center and what we thought was the house number is actually the zip code. We found a coffee shop that looked friendly enough in this rough industrial town on the outskirts of Naples. Through a long conversation with an Italian who spoke no English, Alan received a hand drawn map with directions to TNT courier service (how he managed to communicate that we were looking for an express mail delivery service is beyond me).
We find the place easily with our map and experience all the relief and anticipation for this long awaited event--we are getting our passports! We walk inside this massive Italian Fed Ex type building and hand the woman behind the counter our information, they cannot find us. We get Fabio on the phone, he talks to them because not everything can be communication through their broken English and our lack of Italian. They finally find our tracking number. The guy behind the counter looks at us...."Problem...on truck," holding his hands up as if on a steering wheel. Our passports were on a trunk on its way to Isernia, a town 25 minutes east of our hotel. The TNt rep promised that the passports would be there but we had to go pick them up. They could not be delived before Monday morning.
Damn Murphy and his crazy Law!
So back in the car...tempers flaring! An hour and a half back to where we started. The day ended with another Fabio. Fabio from TNT smiled at us when we walked in, handed us out package and offered us a coffee. Thanks.
Lessoned learned!
--MIKA
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Southern Italy - Rome, Isernia, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast
September 19-20
After our beautiful day in Assisi we headed for hotel in the mountains near Isernia (thanks to a wedding present from Pat and Lanny!). The place was beautiful but finding it was impossible, there were no signs, just small roads leading us through the mountains-it took us a while (2 hours). After being on the road, constantly thinking about where we were going to be resting our heads each night--it was great to have a week reservation and time to just relax. I could actually unpack some things from my backpack and we had the luxury of being able to cook in the apartment kitchen. The next day was spent sleeping and eating - all day!
We did venture out for dinner at in the hotel and befriended the waiters who gave us a great guitar serenade/jam session/sing-along later that evening--they did not speak any English and we did not speak any Italian. It was a fun evening full of hand gestures and laughing.
September 21
Pompeii is defiantly one of those places that you should see before you die. Its the most well preserved ancient city as a result of the massive volcanic eruption of Mt Vesuvius. For 1700 years this city lay beneath ash and debris until it was accidentally rediscovered in 1748. Alan and I spent the first half of our day there, exploring the ruins and hiding from the rain that appeared to be following us.
After Pompeii we headed for the Amalfi Coast, an area that I want to go back to at some point in my life. It is truly breathtaking with its vertical towns and beautiful coastline, think the PCH in Cali times 10! We stopped in a few different towns, drinks in Positano, dinner in Amalfi. We tried to leave before it got dark because the driving is some of the most challenging that we have ever experienced. Everyone drives so fast and the hairpin turns are full of blind spots with barely enough room for cars to pass let alone the buses. We took what we thought would be a short cut back to the highway, but it took us through more winding up mountain roads. The crest of the route gave us a surreal view of Naples at night, one of the best sites and the possibly the only time Naples could look beautiful, far away and at night. It made the white knuckle driving worth it.
September 23-24
After another day of rest, and to escape the rain, Alan and I were ready to go out and do some exploring. We decided to do an overnight trip to Rome, we got up very early, parked our rental car outside the city and took the subway in. We were both very impressed by Rome, not only is the architecture beautiful with every building having some unique aspect it was so clean! The first day was spent at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, we walked to the Pantheon, stayed in a dorm hostel that had a free pasta dinner (we ready to be done with pasta for a while!). Again we dragged ourselves out of bed early in the morning to head over to St. Peters and the Vatican Museum- hands down the best museum either of us have been to, each room was from a different era and was built and displayed as if you were in that time period, the Sistine Chapel wasn't too bad either.
After our beautiful day in Assisi we headed for hotel in the mountains near Isernia (thanks to a wedding present from Pat and Lanny!). The place was beautiful but finding it was impossible, there were no signs, just small roads leading us through the mountains-it took us a while (2 hours). After being on the road, constantly thinking about where we were going to be resting our heads each night--it was great to have a week reservation and time to just relax. I could actually unpack some things from my backpack and we had the luxury of being able to cook in the apartment kitchen. The next day was spent sleeping and eating - all day!
We did venture out for dinner at in the hotel and befriended the waiters who gave us a great guitar serenade/jam session/sing-along later that evening--they did not speak any English and we did not speak any Italian. It was a fun evening full of hand gestures and laughing.
September 21
After Pompeii we headed for the Amalfi Coast, an area that I want to go back to at some point in my life. It is truly breathtaking with its vertical towns and beautiful coastline, think the PCH in Cali times 10! We stopped in a few different towns, drinks in Positano, dinner in Amalfi. We tried to leave before it got dark because the driving is some of the most challenging that we have ever experienced. Everyone drives so fast and the hairpin turns are full of blind spots with barely enough room for cars to pass let alone the buses. We took what we thought would be a short cut back to the highway, but it took us through more winding up mountain roads. The crest of the route gave us a surreal view of Naples at night, one of the best sites and the possibly the only time Naples could look beautiful, far away and at night. It made the white knuckle driving worth it.
September 23-24
After another day of rest, and to escape the rain, Alan and I were ready to go out and do some exploring. We decided to do an overnight trip to Rome, we got up very early, parked our rental car outside the city and took the subway in. We were both very impressed by Rome, not only is the architecture beautiful with every building having some unique aspect it was so clean! The first day was spent at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, we walked to the Pantheon, stayed in a dorm hostel that had a free pasta dinner (we ready to be done with pasta for a while!). Again we dragged ourselves out of bed early in the morning to head over to St. Peters and the Vatican Museum- hands down the best museum either of us have been to, each room was from a different era and was built and displayed as if you were in that time period, the Sistine Chapel wasn't too bad either.
Just before we hoped on the ferry for our 8 hours trip from Brindisi Italy to Corfu, Greece!
Love from Greece,
Alan and Mika
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Florence, Tuscany and Assisi
September 16-19
Welcome back folks...we landed in Corfu, Greece last night, finally got into the ocean and are finally sitting down to update the world.
Last we left we were in Venice enjoying all the romance and mystic that makes it exactly what you think it should be. From there we took a train into Florence. I would love to say that Florence was wonderful and captivating. We just didn't get it. Yes, Michelangelo's 'David' was incredible. The Uffizi has more art that you can look at in 3 days and Brunecelli's Dome blew my engineering socks off. But the city itself is dirty, run down and in need of some serious "stimulus money". We did our best to really get into what the city had to offer but after being in Amsterdam, Venice, Verona etc. it really didn't do much for us. Maybe we just don't love art that much?
OK, enough of the Florence bashing. After 2 days of art, we headed a couple kilometer's south to the "Chianti Road" - the main artery in the Tuscan wine land. If there is ever a way to cure anything, its the Chianti Road. A little background...there is a main road similar to that in the Napa Valley that almost every winery in the Tuscan Valley feeds into. Unlike Napa, the terrain is made up of rolling hills, hairpin turns and scenic overlook after scenic overlook. Not exactly the perfect wine tasting road but hey - this is Italy. Wine tasting here is free. Pop in, sample a couple of there finest and buy what you want. After a couple tastings, we were informed that there was in fact a wine festival in just North of Sienna that day. ALL the local vineyards were going to be represented. How could we not stop by and take a peek! We did our best to taste them all, and for a minute I almost turned Mika into a red wine lover, but we got drunk! (As did half of the surrounding villages I'm sure). It was a blast and I have 2 recommendations for any Chianti lovers out there:
- Montagliani - Chianti Classico 2006
- Villa Vallemaggiore - Maremma Toscana IGT 2006
After a long nights rest, we began our journey south. We stopped in the small village of Assisi (as in St. Francis of Assisi - the animal lover!) - just East of the Tuscan region. Probably one of the hottest days we had thus far, Assisi is basically built on the side of a mountain so every move included steps..lots of steps! Assisi is a small, incedibly well maintained town (it was recently rebuilt after an earthquake a couple years back) and has the best damn pizza either of us have ever had. Bette
r than anything NYC has to offer - I swear.This is just a side note - look at the size of this car!!!!! And it just plugs into an outlet on the street. Come on GM...I know you guys can figure this out.
---ALAN
Friday, September 25, 2009
Our Dog
The past two weeks have been eventful to say the least and Mika and I are hoping to have photos and all the wonderful (and not so wonderful!) adventures posted shortly. We are leaving Italy tomorrow morning and headed to Corfu, Greece.
I had to take a moment though to share this story.
Most of you know our wonderful dog, Mickey. As we travel around the world Mick has been enjoying himself, spending time with our loving friends Monica and Brendan. They just got a 1 year old chocolate lab named Murphy and the two have apparently become quite the pair.
The story begins just before we left the country. Mickey chose to get a skin infection probably in early August. He went through 2 cycles of antibiotics and we thought we had it nailed down. Monica and Brendan seemed unfazed by the last couple days of pills he required and all seemed well as we bid farewll.
Two weeks later, the rash is not only still there but coming back. Our dear friends take him to the vet, I'm not even sure how many times, and Mickey begins a new cycle of steriods to cure the infection. So....just short of a month into the trip, our dog now looks like this....
You can only laugh at his smiling face. Apparently he is knocking everything over becasue he has no idea how big his head now is!
Monica and Brendan....Thank you so much for everything you are doing. We owe you big time!
Mick....you are too much! We love you.
I had to take a moment though to share this story.
Most of you know our wonderful dog, Mickey. As we travel around the world Mick has been enjoying himself, spending time with our loving friends Monica and Brendan. They just got a 1 year old chocolate lab named Murphy and the two have apparently become quite the pair.
The story begins just before we left the country. Mickey chose to get a skin infection probably in early August. He went through 2 cycles of antibiotics and we thought we had it nailed down. Monica and Brendan seemed unfazed by the last couple days of pills he required and all seemed well as we bid farewll.
Two weeks later, the rash is not only still there but coming back. Our dear friends take him to the vet, I'm not even sure how many times, and Mickey begins a new cycle of steriods to cure the infection. So....just short of a month into the trip, our dog now looks like this....
You can only laugh at his smiling face. Apparently he is knocking everything over becasue he has no idea how big his head now is!
Monica and Brendan....Thank you so much for everything you are doing. We owe you big time!
Mick....you are too much! We love you.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Venice
Driving out of Northern Italy and the Dolomites on Monday morning, we headed for the love city of Venice. Suprisingly, for two people that get lost driving up the Merrit Parkway to Mass., we have done extremely well navigating foriegn countries - I have a new found respect for our compass!
Venice is an amazing place. Why they decided to bulid a city on a marsh land is beyond me. I guess the same thing will be said about the Xanadu project in the Meadowlands in 800 years (or has it already been said). Anyway, a couple million timber piles that are almost 1000 years old support everything here...simply genious engineering. The canals are everything you would expect and create a maze that makes Amsterdam look like the grid of midtown Manahattan. You can get lost here simply by standing still.
Unfortunataley the weather has been tricky. It poured on the drive down but let up enough for us to unload the rental car and get our bearings. Then poured enough to soak us on our way to the hotel but stopped again so we could enjoy the rest of the day. The man that owns the B&B we stayed at gave us a quick to do list for ourstay here. Basically he said, wander around and get lost the first day (easy enough), ride along the Grand Canal and take a Gondola ride the second day. See as many of the 120 churches as possible along the way. (120 CHURCHES in all...I'm waiting to understand that). Look, here's one now! This is the most famous. the Basilica di San Marco.
We splurged that night and treated ourselves to an excellent Italian dinner. Bottle of vino, antipasta, 1st course, second course and even desert! Mika may be half Italian but I swear I was meant to be!
So Romantic!!! and Delicious! Which leads me to day 2 in Venice. A boat ride up the Grand Canal to start, a bottle of wine, cheese and fruit for lunch in one of the hundreds of picturesque plazas, followed by the cherry on top - a Gondola ride through the city at twighlight. This is where romance was created!
So now its off to Florence...apparently they have some art there!
Ciao- Alan
Milan, Verona and the Dolomites
Friday, 9.11.09- Monday 9.14.09
We took a quick one hour flight from Belgium to Milan, Italy, which had amazing views of the Alps. Our first priority after renting a car was to find the Indian Embassy and get our Visa sorted out. Alan printed the wrong directions in Belgium and we were left without a map and the additional pressure of only an hour until they closed until Monday. We soon discovered that there are two airports in Milan and we were at the one outside the city, like we needed another obstacle. Somehow we made it (through my wonderful navigational skills and Alan's excellent driving in these challenging video game like highways) without getting lost and with 20 minutes to spare!
A few days prior Alan had spoken to a guy named Fabio, yes Fabio, on the phone about the visa application process. Upon our arrival the man behind the front desk calls Fabio in. It turns out that Fabio is the owners son and Fabio LOVES New York City. Small talk lead to a drink and then lunch on the house (I say on the house but mind you there was a 55 Euro processing fee for the visa so you so the math!). After much talk about New York, (Alan had some difficulty relating at times to the great shopping in New York and the number of jeans one man can own) he gave us lots of ideas on where to go and soon we had ditched our plans to head up Northwest to Lake Como and Mt Blanc and decided to head Northeast towards the Dolomites and Lake Gorda instead.
We spent the second half of our day in Verona, a small touristy town with lots of charm (I mean Romeo and Juliet for crying out load!) and the night in a not so nice hotel.
The next morning, with just a map for guidance we headed north towards Lake Gorda, opting for the slow backroads that followed the lake North. Soon it came time to find a place to stay, we were tired of traveling and since we rarely make reservations ahead of time we needed to start looking. We decide on camping, even though we did not have a tent. This area is full of Italian tourists and camping is very common along the lake. We plop our things down on a site and set out in search of a make shift tent. In town we find a tarp and Alan assures me that "this will be great," and "it is so nice to sleep outside!"
2km up shore there is a small festival in Navera that begins in the evening complete with fireworks, we are the only Americans there and spent our evening people watching and eating. (I must say so far we have not been impressed by the food, that is until we reached Venice). The small firework show was nothing in comparison to NYCs 4th of July, but it did have a comical appeal. They would routinely shoot fireworks into the ground toward the festival area. Clearly not on purpose but it happened often nough to question their ability. It did provide a nice touch to the show though!
The night "camping" was miserable. The winds picked up soon after we had gone to bed and the tarp was flung around making so much noise and falling all over us that it made it impossible to sleep. I tired to crawl into the car but was only able to lay in the fetal position. After not much sleep Alan and I packed up our things and spent the day driving Northeast through the Dolomites. We passed through field after field of grapes and apples, taking small roads through mountain top towns with streets that barely had enough room for our car. We stopped for lunch at a biker bar. Motorcycles are very popular here and the riders are all decked out in the most extreme stereo typical outfits. We continued driving through Austrian inspired ski towns before heading south stopping outside a small town to stay the night at the cutest place! And enjoyed a bottle of wine outside taking in the great view before we headed out to dinner.
This new life of ours is surreal. Each morning we pack up our day bag and head out for an entire day of wandering. We are both finding out what our "roles" are. Alan always wants to figure out where we are going or where we are. I on the other hand enjoy being lost while in a city without having to worry about going the wrong way or turning here. In his defense his desire to pin point our locations does give us some important historical information and I have lead us to some pretty great undiscovered, less touristy areas.
--Mika
We took a quick one hour flight from Belgium to Milan, Italy, which had amazing views of the Alps. Our first priority after renting a car was to find the Indian Embassy and get our Visa sorted out. Alan printed the wrong directions in Belgium and we were left without a map and the additional pressure of only an hour until they closed until Monday. We soon discovered that there are two airports in Milan and we were at the one outside the city, like we needed another obstacle. Somehow we made it (through my wonderful navigational skills and Alan's excellent driving in these challenging video game like highways) without getting lost and with 20 minutes to spare!
A few days prior Alan had spoken to a guy named Fabio, yes Fabio, on the phone about the visa application process. Upon our arrival the man behind the front desk calls Fabio in. It turns out that Fabio is the owners son and Fabio LOVES New York City. Small talk lead to a drink and then lunch on the house (I say on the house but mind you there was a 55 Euro processing fee for the visa so you so the math!). After much talk about New York, (Alan had some difficulty relating at times to the great shopping in New York and the number of jeans one man can own) he gave us lots of ideas on where to go and soon we had ditched our plans to head up Northwest to Lake Como and Mt Blanc and decided to head Northeast towards the Dolomites and Lake Gorda instead.
We spent the second half of our day in Verona, a small touristy town with lots of charm (I mean Romeo and Juliet for crying out load!) and the night in a not so nice hotel.
The next morning, with just a map for guidance we headed north towards Lake Gorda, opting for the slow backroads that followed the lake North. Soon it came time to find a place to stay, we were tired of traveling and since we rarely make reservations ahead of time we needed to start looking. We decide on camping, even though we did not have a tent. This area is full of Italian tourists and camping is very common along the lake. We plop our things down on a site and set out in search of a make shift tent. In town we find a tarp and Alan assures me that "this will be great," and "it is so nice to sleep outside!"
2km up shore there is a small festival in Navera that begins in the evening complete with fireworks, we are the only Americans there and spent our evening people watching and eating. (I must say so far we have not been impressed by the food, that is until we reached Venice). The small firework show was nothing in comparison to NYCs 4th of July, but it did have a comical appeal. They would routinely shoot fireworks into the ground toward the festival area. Clearly not on purpose but it happened often nough to question their ability. It did provide a nice touch to the show though!
The night "camping" was miserable. The winds picked up soon after we had gone to bed and the tarp was flung around making so much noise and falling all over us that it made it impossible to sleep. I tired to crawl into the car but was only able to lay in the fetal position. After not much sleep Alan and I packed up our things and spent the day driving Northeast through the Dolomites. We passed through field after field of grapes and apples, taking small roads through mountain top towns with streets that barely had enough room for our car. We stopped for lunch at a biker bar. Motorcycles are very popular here and the riders are all decked out in the most extreme stereo typical outfits. We continued driving through Austrian inspired ski towns before heading south stopping outside a small town to stay the night at the cutest place! And enjoyed a bottle of wine outside taking in the great view before we headed out to dinner.
This new life of ours is surreal. Each morning we pack up our day bag and head out for an entire day of wandering. We are both finding out what our "roles" are. Alan always wants to figure out where we are going or where we are. I on the other hand enjoy being lost while in a city without having to worry about going the wrong way or turning here. In his defense his desire to pin point our locations does give us some important historical information and I have lead us to some pretty great undiscovered, less touristy areas.
--Mika
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