Ambling in Amberg (and Nabberg too)

The best trips are sometimes the least planned trips. You know, the ones where you wake up in the morning and say "so, where shall we go today ...". Well our trips to Germany are pretty much like that. Our friendly KIA is now very used to us phoning on the friday morning to hire and pick up the car that afternoon.

We have been told that Amberg is a great little town to visit for the kids as there is a water park with slides and hot pools. My colleague at work told us about a small little historical village called Nabberg along the way, which we stopped at for lunch on the way.

Nabberg was incredibly picturesque with building all quantly painted and (as always in Germany) perfectly neat and tidy (a great change from Italy)

We strolled through the town (which took all of about 20 minutes) and came across an ancient chappel on the hill was a view over the farm lands.


On the way back to the car, we stopped off at the restaurant for lunch, with the girls asking "when are we going to the water slides"; "how long before we get there"; "can we go now ..."

We had no accommodation booked in Amberg, but drove around and found a little hotel in the centre when we got there. This was the first time we have left home without a place to stay - but as Amberg is only 90 minutes away, there was no real problem with just driving home again if the worst came to the worst.

Needless to say, we found a friendly hotel and then set out for the pools. Supper that evening was at a traditional bavarian restaurant. It was a brewery as well and they actually made really great beer. The restaurant is set around the copper vats and pipes.

On Sunday we spent the day strolling around Amber and enjoying the town. The weather was a bit miserable as it was drizzling and raining most of the day. But at least it gave us the excuse to duck into cafes for coffee and ice creams.

Trains, planes and automo..busses

Well, actually...Bus, bus, plane, bus, train, bus, bus. This is what it takes to get from Plzen to Firenze (Florence) and it takes 17 hours to do it, end to end.
While the budgerigars where still hesitantly peeping at the dawn out of their cozy summer nests, the Woods were up and shifting hiny to get to the "Yellow Bus" on time.When we got up there was time to do what we had to do and get there in time to wait 10 minutes for the Plzen - Prague commute.

After our storming decent on the bus stop with all the finesse of a "run with the bulls", wet with sweat from sprinting 600M with suitcases in hand and shrieking babies on hip and having forgotten to take out the trash and bring the chicken-mayo salmies out of the fridge I wasn't so convinced that our planning was that reliable.

Lessons learned -

1. It takes 50% longer to leave the house than we think (every time, no matter how many times we think we'll do it better next time)
2. No matter how many things you do the night before there is still a kakload to be done before you can lock the door behind you
3. A baby that has had only 6 hours sleep will NOT entertain running at 04:30 am even if it costs them their life
4. Sprinting with suitcases and babies down steps and up slopes and then along sidewalks from a cold start at 04:30 in the morning is a good way to tempt a coronary
5. Left-over food in the waste bin smells predictably bad when left for 10 days - take it out the night before
6. Chicken-mayo salmies left in the fridge for 10 days become quite colorful
7. People already seated serenely in a bus, while red-faced parents blowing like whales pile in with screaming kids think you are completely mad and stare for a long time

Apart from starting in a bit of a hurry the trip went off well until we got to the train station in Milan. We had very conscientiously paid for the best ratio we could find between speed, time of travel and cost to get from Milan to Firenze. Tip for travelers in Italian summers - its flipping hot, take the Eurostar - its fast and air-conditioned. Despite the premium it became our standard train of choice thereafter.

We sauna'd and sautee'd and casseroled for 4 hours from Milan to Florence on a regional train - very nice trains, but bugger - no aircon and slooow. We were allocated seats in the same carriage fortunately, but in different cabins which would have meant that I would sit in a cabin and the rest of the family in another. The train was packed, not a spare seat anywhere. Fortunately, the cabin that the Hayley and the kids were in was occupied by another family of 4 and they kindly, in English so broken it could only qualify as sign language, invited us to join them even though we were one more person than the cabin could take. The other mom put her small son on her lap and we all piled in.

The kids got on well, even though there was a language impasse - fortunately the mom had a few words of English stashed away for a sweltering day on a train full of Plzenian South Africans. By the end of the trip, the older boy (7) was in love with Amber and the younger was comfortable enough to crawl all over us. They seemed very nice people and we were grateful to have been able to be together for the trip.

Thanks Guys!

We got to see some heights of hospitality and some lows of almost hostility from the Italians. On the warm Italian hospitality side... First - the family on the train really went to a level of discomfort having their little compartment over filled and - this, our second experience in Florence when we arrived - the guy on the right owns the small pizzeria and we stopped in for some drinks just as they were taking fresh pizza from the oven. He didn't have more than two words of English to rub together, but man, he used the ones he had and made us feel so welcome - ended up giving us a huge slice of the fresh pizza free and it was really good - so when next in Florence stop off at the small Pizzeria by the train station and go in and visit our mate (can't remember his name) and have some great pizza with some people full of life.

I don't think we realised that the trip to Florence would take anywhere close to as long as it did. Somewhere in the romance of planning a trip to Italy one gets to believe that it'll be relaxed and we'll arrive in time to have a leisurely sunset amble about the hotel surrounds before retiring in preparation for our first day of serious "work" the next day - sightseeing. What actually happens is that we gleefully leap in front of the oncoming coma until we begrudgingly drag ourselves and kids out of the hotel because it would just be too expensive to sleep in any longer.

Florence is a pretty little town, we had a nice hotel, a little out of town, but it had a free shuttle bus running to the station every hour (wish we had known that when we arrived! Not knowing this added the extra 2 busses to the end of our trip - above). They have a nice big swimming pool that was a great refresher at the end of the hot days. Apparently Italy was in the throes of a heat wave while we were there - it's no wonder heat kills people in Europe - it's hot enough to rival a heavy day in Africa - 40+ and Europeans, just like their cars, are not built to deal with extremes like this.

Anyhow, on to the sights.

This is where we started the day in Firenze, Piazza Stazione, and spent a few minutes planning out where to go while the kids ran amok on the lawns chasing the tired pigeons, picking any flowers that were available (or grass when they ran out of flowers) and making their now trademark din. European authorities now call ahead to warn their citizens that we are on our way so that the fright of our arrival is not overwhelming. We have noisiest kids in Europe bar none, but they win us masses of grace and favour wherever we go - people love these girls on sight. Among those they wind around their fingers include passport control officials, bus drivers, police people, shop assistants, even Swiss Guards who ordinarily have a giant carrot up their ass, and just about anyone else who comes along.

We had 2 (and a bit) days to spend in Florence and dealt with the main attractions of the town that we wanted to see in a day. We didn't get to see Michelangelo's "David" though, which was a bit of a disappointment. The second day we used for the short commute to Pisa to do the mandatory leaning tower...

Florence
Church of St Maria Novella in back and about a trillion bicycles just visible behind us - these and another zillion scooters are a very popular for of getting around all of this country - never seen so many - ever.

Not far from the station is the Duomo, dedicated to St Maria del Fiore, apart from being completely stripy with its green and white marble pajamas, the place is stunning. Apparently the 4th largest church in the world...

Access to the main body of the church was free, and as is now our custom in such places, we spent some time developing a crick in the neck absorbing the perfection of the place. We didn't go into the baptistery, but were amazed by it from the outside - the doors in particular...

If you look at the people in front of the church in the photo above you'll see a brotha in a white "T" shirt - there are a bunch of these foreigners here who include a lot of what look like Spanish people too. See below here they are all set up selling counterfeit stuff...

These guys are all illegal peddlers and represent the Italian equivalent of South African traffic light vending. There are dozens of them all over Italy and they all lay out their wares - pictures like dominos laid out on the floor, sunglass stands made of cardboard that can be folded up under the arm in a second and handbags laid out on a large cloth on the floor that has rope tied to each corner ready to be pulled up in flight. When the cops show up (which happens really often - several times in an hour), from somewhere in the unseen depths of the public a call goes out to which all the vendors instantly react, scooping up their paintings by running down the length of the display and piling them up in hand as they go, or pulling up their stands of cardboard or knapsacking their handbags and within seconds fleeing in all directions, not dissimilar to flies fleeing an approaching hand, only to return and settle as soon as the hand has passed. Of course, all the stuff they sell is fake and branded, and of course there are a lot of tourists who buy from them. Its not uncommon to be overtaken by a stampeding herd of these chaps fleeing the short arms of the law.

Moving on - here's a pictorial fly-by of the rest of the day...

This is a view of the Church of San Lorenzo and the Cloister.

This is a copy of David in the Piazza della Signoria. The original used to be here, but was moved to its current location in the Galleria Dell'Accademia

Apparently in the old days it was common to build houses, shops and things on bridges - we saw this in Regensburg too - one of the bridges there was completely built up hundreds of years ago and a flood caused the bridge to collapse destroying all the building etc on top.

Can you imagine building your house on a bridge? I mean, that's asking for kak init? Anyway there are still some people who haven't learnt - below is the Ponte Vecchio over the river Arno. Still, while it stands it makes for novel tourist interest.
Us on (or just over) the above said...

We have hundreds of pictures of the trip, have a look here for some more Florence and Pisa

Pisa
What can I tell you about Pisa? I was determined to see it from early on in the planning, but I'm not sure it ever got onto Hayley's radar... We would be in conversation with someone, (this happened a few times), tell them about the planned trip to Italy and Hayley's itinerary went Florence, Rome, Venice. Mine was Milan, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Venice, Milan - just sounds bigger doesn't it? Anyway, we got there and thoroughly enjoyed the place - it was packed with people and hotazell.

The battle for domination of the tower! This and a million other poses involving the leaning tower are so cliche when you're there, but you've just got to do it...
This looks like the angle that the "European Gigolo" photo was taken - I couldn't stop thinking about it while we were there, and there were obviously a bunch of imitators there too.

I didn't know it before we did the research for the trip, but the tower, the Duomo and the Baptistery are all located in the Campo dei Miracoli - Field of Miracles. We love Wikipedia - have a look here for everything you ever wanted to know.

This is a quaint over-priced tourist restaurant on one of the streets adjoining the field that we had lunch at. Stunning little place, but hounded by buskers and beggars - the first high-pressure begging / selling we've encountered since leaving ZA.

Roma
Roma... Rome is like the Matrix... no one can tell you what it is - you have to see it for yourself... This place has 2500 years of history on tap and enough grandeur and intrigue to make it all seem like a weekend.
For me, Rome sets a record... I remember being awed by the history of the Tower of London - there you are looking at about 1100 years worth of history, you can see where Henry the such and such executed this many people for those convenient reasons and so on... But Rome is something different. For a start it's twice as old and eclipses anything else from a historical content perspective.I have a feeling Israel, China and Egypt will be in the same league, but Rome is just magnificent.

Like any piece of human history, the story of Rome is told by the succession of wars and turmoil, but unlike a great many it goes into some extremes in terms of what they did, and the levels of decadence and depravity that they reached that eventually lead to their decline. Its all fascinating to me, but probably not to anyone else so I'll spare you the history lesson.
My favourite place is the Colosseum, followed closely by the forums - the rest is still WOW! but not as wow!

Standing here, and trying to picture what it must have been like... Not that one would have liked to be there watching thousands of beasts and people fight to the death and the crowd going moggy with all the excitement. On the face of it, they seems like a sick bunch, but they were not much sicker than we are today. Now, watching dozens of people die violent deaths on screen is considered a good nights entertainment, so I guess we're not far behind... maybe the ancient Romans were better than us actually, they didn't pretend to die, fake blood pouring out of fake wounds - they had a little more authenticity and integrity - these guys did it for real.
Anyhoo...

The floor used to be made of wood covered in sand - all these tunnels were where the performers used to be kept and where the action was controlled from. There were trap-doors in the floor allowing new contestants, props and all kinds of things to be sent up on big lifting platforms. They were quite elaborate with some of the sets - one even included a whale, and out of its mouth came bears into the contest. You can just see the crowd here...

The kids were fascinated by the idea that they used to fight lions in this arena, its difficult to tell them the truth and try simultaneously to tell them how bad it all was and keep their imaginations in check. For a while we had play-play things fighting and dying in the Colosseum - ranging from baby dinosaurs to horsies...

Constantine's arch just outside the Colosseum

Vatican City and St Peters - this church is unbelievable. I'd love to be there when the last tourist has left for the day, hear those massive doors bang closed and then just sit there in the silence... I get goosie even thinking about it

Light beams in the basillica... 'nuff said. As an aside, the photo directly above - turned out to be stored in our "Italy" holiday folder as number 777... makes you think ne?

This is one of the Swiss Guards who are charged with the Popes security. Here's a novelty - these chaps are dressed a little out of the ordinary, wearing costumes probably originally designed by Michelangelo himself, they are in one of the busiest tourist spots on the planet and you are not allowed to take pictures of them... will someone please help me...? It's like getting all tarted up in your makeup, highest heels, fishnets, hotpants and wonderbra, standing on a street corner in the red-light district at night and getting all annoyed that you get solicited for business. This particular chap against the orders of what seemed to be his boss, who I can't say anything constructive about here, managed to face the camera only when Amber burst into tears because she couldn't get a photo with him. Kudos to the man who, for an instant managed a smile for a crying child despite his regulation issue carrot and Mussolini mini-me commanding officer!

We were here!

The Pantheon - lovely place, naturally lit with a...

...dirty great (purposefully there) hole in the roof - its bit of a drag when it rains, and I guess winter must be an interesting time too!
We had dinner at a restaurant in the square in right in front of the Pantheon - It was so cool sitting on the doorstep of such an amazing place in the evening coolth having dinner...

.. and "watermo...busses"

Enter Hayley: Can't let Colin take all the air time :)

Venice
This was now definitely my highlight of the journey (and the part that I was probably looking forward to the most).

One thing that stuck out on this trip for me was that no matter how well prepared we thought we were - we were actually not prepared at all! Example: We knew our hotel was not on the island of Venice, but on the mainland. We knew our train terminated on the island, but that it also stopped on the mainland. We did not know what that mainland stop was or how much more convenient it would have been to get off on the mainland. It kinda dawned on us as the train was pulling out of the mainland station to cross the bridge to the island that maybe it would have been a good idea to find a way to our hotel from the station we had just left...

Oh well. To be honest, it was well worth the extra about 3 hours it took us to get back to the mainland as the scene that welcomed us when we got off the train was just .. well .. breathtaking! and truly unbelievable at the same time. Below is the view from the train station.

We spent a good hour at the train station trying to get travel information to find out how to get back to the mainland again. Colin sat on the steps outside while the girls chased pigeons; made friends and generally ran amok while I stood in queues inside.

While we were sitting on the steps contemplating the next step of our journey and not wanting to move from our vantage point, we watched a gondola get hit by a speed boat taxi, knocking the poor gondola driver clean off his boat and breaking the back tail. He got out the water screaming and cursing the taxi driver. We got a picture of him while he was still dry, below.

Well, time was not waiting and the daylight so deceptively makes you think that you have still got time on your hands, so we set off to find the bus stop to get to our hotel, considering it was already pushing 8pm. Colin always has the fun task of carrying the bag - and Venice is not kind to travellers with it's multitude of steps and bridges. First bridge crossing and view of the Grand Canal below.

The next day we started with a boat trip down the Grand Canal. The bus service there operates pretty much like any other bus with coloured routes and bus stops the whole way along the canals and we sure made use of the 3 day travel pass.

Still could not get over the houses with the water lapping under the front door!

The Grand Canal is flanked the whole way with cafes and markets and LOTS of gondolas. We stopped and had a drink at one of the cafes below just so that we could use the toilet. Can you believe that the public toilets wanted to charge us 2 euros a person to use the loo!!!! Now normally I have to pay and the kids go in for free, but not in Venice! And my miserliness popped up and just would not get over paying 6 euros for a pee!

Watching the Venetian traffic, we were amazed that there weren't more crashes. There didn't seem to be any specific lanes or direction of traffic flow - or none that we could make out anyway.

And of course, everything gets done by boat - even the high speed cop chases. While we were drinking our beer at the cafe mentioned above, an ambulance came passed at high speed and totally upset the peace of the pavement, sending out a HUGE wave that came right over the bank, soaking all of our feet and bags and created much excitement amongst the cafe patrons.

The Grand Canal empties out into a large body of water, with San Marco on the left and an island on the right with the church of San Giorgio on it. The photo below is one of my favourite with everything "in motion". It was taken from San Marco looking over to San Giorgio.

San Marco is a tourist hot spot overrun with, well, tourists. And wherever there are tourists, there are the curios. Amber and Saz got to choose what they wanted. Amber a fan and Sarah a snow globe. The fan definitely became the prized choice and although Saz never said as much but the envy of the fan was plain to see (and a 2nd one was bought before the end of the stay).

The weather was unbelievably hot. The whole trip in Italy was done in high 30s. Our factor 30 has never had to work this hard. Below we are strolling through the square of San Marco and the following pics are of the basilica of San Marco

We were NOT in a tourist mood and decided to avoid the "must see" San Marco Basilicas and Palaces and moved out of the main hub to explore some of the quieter streets of San Marco. Without much attention to the map, we ambled around left and then right depending on what attracted our attention around each corner (that's the best part of being on an island - how lost can you really get anyway).

We happened upon some gondola drivers taking a load off and took the opportunity for a snap. Although I took a 2nd picture to put the flash on - I still didn't get it right, so unfortunately we can see they are gondola drivers, but really cannot see who they are...

Now, just like with the police and ambulance activities, as soon as you get off the main streets, you start to see life as normal for Venetians... Activities like building and moving house take on a whole new perspective..

We took a trip to the San Giorgio church and thoroughly enjoyed the view from the belfry over Venice..

By evening time we found a little out of the way restaurant that was apparently mainly used by locals and received the hospitality of the restaurant owner who was a one-man-show ... cook, waiter, owner, order taker, drinks pourer and boy did it show. He was constantly out of breath and looking really frazzled. But the food was excellent and the company the best.

On our last day, we did the boat trip to the island of Morano - famous for it's glass works. All the glass blowers of Venice were sent to this island to avoid any fires in Venice. It must be really hard to distinguish yourself and your shop from the rest where every store is in the same trade - and the island is really not that small! The one window really appealed to us - it even had glass flowers in the window boxes :)

As learned from the Paris and Disney Land trip, we saved the best activity for last. The LONG awaited, and MUCH asked after .... gondola ride!

Definitely one of those things that you cannot not do in Venice! We planned it to coincide with dinner and so we asked our driver to take us to one of the streets that was recommended to us as the "local" hangout - free of tourists. It was really great. Walking down the street you can hear the sounds of people at home - children being bathed; family chatter in the living rooms. We enjoyed watching all the people coming and going by their boats - young couples "cruizin" with their speakers blaring; families coming home from their shopping; old timers coming back from a day's fishing; others coming home from the beach...

And tomorrow we will be leaving :(

I am looking forward to "getting lost in Venice" again... and hopefully again...

(After Venice, there was a one night stop over at Milan. Enough to qualify for a fridge magnet, but not really enough to qualify for any conversation space or photos on this blog. We had a pizza lunch outside the train station; hot chocolate at the hotel and breakfast at the airport ... and that was really as exciting as it got!)