For our 10 year anniversary we planned a trip to Italy! Grandma B came out to watch the girls for a whole week while we went on our trip! We are so lucky to have her willing to come watch the girls and take care of them while we explored Italy. The girls had a great time and will always remember their extra time with Grandma B.
We brought home gifts for each of the girls. Charley has enjoyed learning how to cook and we found a little shop in Venice that embroidered chef hats, and Jonny loves little bags and so we brought her back a little purse. Bergen wanted a wallet and we brought her home a little wallet. In Venice we bought a "venetian mask" for Lenny.
Our last full day in Italy we did a bus tour of the Almafi Coast. We had three stops in small towns along the coast. That region of Italy is known for their Lemons and Lemon sorbet drinks were everywhere! They looked delicious and we had to share one. It was delightful! There were seriously lemon flavored things everywhere! Spencer found this little shop that sold fish baskets. Spencer LOVED.. Madison not so much.. We only had an hour or so in each little town, but we enjoyed the beach at our last stop and Spencer took a little swim in the ocean to soak it all in. We loved the narrow roads, the tight cliffs, the beautiful views and the beautiful scenery. We couldn't hav asked for a better day to do the coast!
Grandma B kept the girls well entertained while we were away! We tried to leave activities for them to do and gifts for them to open to have something to look forward to. It's always hard to have Mom and Dad away for so long but the girls survived and we'll always be grateful for Grandma B for staying and watching the girls.
NAPLES PIZZA!!! This was heaven for Spencer. We did a classic pizza hopping night and it was so fun and soooooo good. We did all the classic places L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, Sorbillo, etc. The pizza's were so smooth and so perfectly cooked. The night life in Naples was also so crazy!! Lots of people jam packed on little streets and all the yummy fried foods you could imagine.
We spent a day in Pompeii. It was one of the highlights of our trip. It was so amazing to walk through the ruins and imagine what life was like in that city before the Volcano erupted. We loved being able to walk through at our own pace and listen to the guided audio tours. It was amazing to see how advanced the people were and their way of life. They had an athletic stadium, bath houses, fast food restaurants, etc.
This was the BEST food we ate in Italy! We had to get reservations early in the day, but the food was phenomenal and it seemed like everyone else in the restaurant was a food connoseur. Everything from the bread, to the pasta was cooked to perfection. It was near the Jewish quarters where we saw several of the placards which were dedicated to Jews who were pulled from their homes by the Nazis in WWII and sent to concentration camps. It was very sombering to walk through the streets and stand in front of the door of a home to someone who was subjected to such hate and spite.
Yes, we had some time to kill and so we went to a Turkish Bath.. It was simply amazing.
It's not a trip to Rome without a guided tour through Vatican City!! We learned so much about the Catholic church and about the history of the followers of Christ after his death. We had no idea that Jesus' apostle Peter is buried inside of the Vatican (Peter's Basillica). It was so fun to tour and very surreal to know that we were in the same place as the apostle Peter.
We got to meet up with Mads' friend Abby for dinner one night. It was great to get a good Italian meal with her and catch up on her Italian travels. We loved exploring Rome and all it has to offer.
We covered so much more ground than we thought we would be able to by renting electric scooters to take us in between locations. We laughed the whole time because we would share a single scooter and cruise through town singing in Italian. The colosseum was massive and huge! It was so incredible to think they built that and what they used to do there! It was really cool to actually see it in person. Such restoration!!
