Author: natalie

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Rome

We have been in Rome for a month now. It was Ethan’s choice to visit Rome. I was more excited to learn about the break up of Yugoslavia than the Fall of The Roman Empire, however, it turns out (not surprisingly to most) that the sites here are impressive. They have even succeeded in making me enjoy learning about the Roman Empire.

Touring Rome was even more fun because we got to do it with Tessa and Aimee. They visited us for a week and we packed in the sites and day trips while they were here.

We took a tour of the Colosseum with what may be the fastest talking tour guide on earth. And this is coming from me… not known to be a slow speaker.  But still, we were able to learn some nifty facts. For instance, I didn’t know the external facade of the Colosseum had been completely covered in white marble.

At the Roman Forum… we were trying to figure out if the free downloaded audio guide was worth it. As you may be able to guess by the children’s faces, it was not.

Above is the Pantheon, one of my favorite sites in Rome.  It was dedicated around 126 A.D. and is one of the best preserved Roman buildings.

Trevi Fountain.

Above: at The Roman Forum, Villa Borghese Gardens, Gucci and walking to Capuchin Crypt. We were not allowed to take photos inside the crypt so the one below is not from Matthew. But you get the idea.

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One of our day trips was to visit Santa Severa. The photo shows the castle in the distance that we toured. Tessa and Logan buried Ethan.

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MANGASIA

Earlier this month was saw a Monet exhibit here in Rome. Ethan said that it looked like scribbles.

He suggested that we go to an art exhibit of his choice, Manga. Actually, the exhibit had lots of Asian comic art through the years. (I am sure that is not stated correctly but I am betting most of you don’t know or care).

The last room had the robot projection that you can see above; it moved quite accurately mirroring your body movements. The 6 year old girls doing splits and flailing their arms made the robot do entertaining dances.

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Bracciano, Italy

A few weeks ago we took a day trip to Bracciano, a small town just north of Rome. I was looking for any reason to escape the crowds and Bracciano has a lake, a medieval castle, and was easy to reach by train.

 

The castle was build at the end of the 15th century but is now a museum with period furniture and weapons on display.

We are near the tourist district in Rome so there are tons of restaurants with pasta and pizza, most of them only average. In Bracciano we lucked upon an excellent restaurant. The owner / waiter was extremely friendly as he tried to help us order. He then proceeded to cook the food. This required lots of banging dishes and a fair amount of time, but the end result was worth it.

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Random pictures from Slovenia

 

The river running through Ljubljana was located a block from our apartment.

Our apartment in Ljubljana.

 

The “Cat Cafe” was across the street from our apartment. They served hot chocolate and had eight cats that you could pet. Notice Logan’s actual smile, not her camera smile.

 

That disc spins, and you can run on it. Good idea?

Ethan and Logan at the puppet musuem.

Metelkova – one the larges urban squats in Europe. Students took over the old army barracks after they were abandoned in 1991. The government tried to demolish them in 1993, but caved to student / squatter protest. We visited in the morning and enjoyed the paintings, sculptures and odd structures. We did not have a chance to take photos of the people; it appears they like to sleep in.

 

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Slovenian Cuisine

We loved Ljublajana, but we never really warmed to the local food. They seem to put cottage cheese in more dishes than we had imagined possible. The desserts with cottage cheese were edible, but I didn’t want seconds. I managed to eat the smoked ravioli with cottage cheese, but the only flavors were smoke and cottage cheese.

So every Friday we were anxious to get to the downtown market where restaurants would set up booths to sell local and foreign cuisine. We favored Thai and Mediterranean restaurants, but tried a number of local dishes as well.

Above is a local potato dish that I liked enough to buy twice. It is hard to ruin fried potatoes. Although, Matthew took a bite and spit it out. So I guess he thinks you can mess up potatoes.

Ethan appears scared of the dessert being cooked, but we all enjoyed the end product. The pan started out with liquid but ended up looking like chunks of fried dough. Logan is holding the finished product. She preferred the Nutella topped side over the fruit topped side.

Ljubljana is the European green capital of 2016. Recycle and compost bins are located all over the city. Above is one of the local helpers who sits by the garbage bins to help confused foreigners figure out where to place their trash.

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Florence

After leaving Ljubljana, we spent the weekend in Florence so that Ethan could see works from the Renaissance. Basically, when your kid is excited about seeing the sites of the Renaissance, you say, “of course, I would love to!”, even if you think a relaxing weekend in the mountains might be a nice option.

Logan needed to learn about the Renaissance, so we took a few free walking tours with Adam (above). He provided lots of information, and quite a few poop jokes. He thought the poop jokes were really funny. We thought… well, look at Ethan’s face.

The central city (historical / tourist district) is small. We passed by The Duomo probably a dozen times. It is impossible to capture the detail in photos, but I don’t think any of us got tired of staring at it. Renaissance enjoyed.

Climbing Alnorfo Tower.

We saw a copy of Michelangelo’s David in Palazzo Vecchio during our first tour. It was interesting, but not remarkable. The next morning we went to The Accademia to see the authentic David. As every art critic on earth has previously noted, it really is impressive.

 

Lovely children.

Adam suggested we visit the Basicilica di Santa Croce. He had a story of someone breaking down in tears when they saw it’s beauty. We didn’t. But it was nice, and it had Michelangelo’s tomb.

My family ate this. I did not. It was expensive.

 

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Day trip to Venice

We are feeling a bit down today because we leave Ljubljana tomorrow. We love walking around the pedestrian zone of the city and bumping into whatever daily market, fair or festival has popped up. When Matthew leads the walks they seem to veer by the ice cream stand. We love hiking up the hill to the castle because, well, there is a castle.  Life is tranquil and I have no worries about letting the kids take walks, go to cafes or do the grocery shopping for me.

But tomorrow we leave for Italy. We will spend the weekend in Florence and then head to Rome for a month.

Last weekend we had our first taste of Italy on a day trip to Venice. Lots of canals.

Where’s Waldo? Or, where is the clump of Logan, Natalie and Ethan?

We stopped by Trieste, Italy on our return to Ljubljana. The photo above was taken there.

 

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More photos from Germany

Matthew takes a lot of photos. The year we were in New Zealand he took 10,000. Really. Not a lie. He takes less now, but it can still take him a while to look through them and get them to me. This may have something to do with the fact that he works. I say all of this to explain why I am posting photos of Germany when we left there 4 weeks ago.

We spent a weekend in Munich after our time in Bad Kohlgrub. Above are photos of Nymphenburg Palace.

 

Hike at Partnach Gorge in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Day trip to Innsbruck, Austria

 

I don’t know what Matthew is doing to that sausage.

Sites seen while on a walking tour of “Hitler’s Munich”.

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

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Happy Birthday Logan!

Logan turned 12 last week. She got an odd assortment of gifts that can be found in our local grocery store and we took her bowling.

And let me just say that I know it is completely inappropriate to talk about myself while I am celebrating the birth of my lovely daughter. But I bowled 5 strikes in a row. Five. In a row.

.

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Bled

The town of Bled is one of the major attractions in Slovenia and I, like every other tourist in Slovenia, was looking forward to a visit. A scenic church is located on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. Above, a castle is perched on a sheer cliff. And there is even a dessert named for the town!

We hiked up to the castle and around the lake. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. But when all was said and done, we prefer Ljubljana over Bled any day. The surroundings are gorgeous but the town lacks the charm and tranquility of Ljubljana.

Vintgar gorge is located just outside Bled.

 

And I don’t even think he has seen The Karate Kid

Bled Cream Cake. It is in EVERY cafe. Logan liked it despite the different textures and lack of chocolate. I guess I can call that progress?

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It’s raining

It’s raining… a lot. It is raining so much that I took the kids to an illusion museum today. Some of you may have noticed my increase in posts today. Did I mention there has been a lot of rain?

        

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Castles, castles, castles

When I  started to plan our year of travel I asked Matthew, Ethan and Logan to choose a country. Logan chose Norway. I vetoed Norway due to the cost. Her second choice was Ecuador, which we loved. Ethan chose Italy (heading there next). Matthew chose Germany and said he wanted to see the castles there. I had passed through Germany once before and really didn’t care that much to return as there are so many places to go in the world. But I ended up loving our time there… castles, Alps and mac & cheese with beer. What’s not to love.

King Ludwig II liked to build castles. Per our guide at Neuschwanstein Castle, he angered family members by spending the family fortune constructing them, and then died under mysterious circumstances.

Above is Neuschwanstein Castle. It is reported to be the inspiration for a Disney’s castle. I read it is Sleeping Beauty’s but I didn’t even remember that she had a proper castle so consider that tidbit of information unconfirmed.

Fun fact (as Logan would say)… one of the rooms inside the castle is constructed like the interior of a cave.

View from Neuschwanstein Castle (above).

Hohenschwangau Castle (above and below) was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II. It was built by his father, King Maximilian II.

Linderhof Castle (below).

 

Above: Logan and Natalie

I took the picture directly above. Matthew noted that I chopped the swan’s head off. This is why he is the photographer. And in my defense, I was too busy looking at the family I love to notice some swan.

I should also note that Matthew has MANY wonderful pictures of statues and close ups of parts of buildings. But this is my blog and I like trees. So… most pictures are at a distance where you can see the trees.

I am still waiting for Matthew to give me the photos of the last castle we visited, but I think Matthew can check German castles off his to do list.

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Hike with Cable Car

I have had a number of features requested for my blog and am attempting to add them. Comments now function, and as of today you can click on a picture to enlarge it. This was not difficult, I was simply oblivious to the feature. My awesome tech support (a.k.a. Matthew) showed me how to do it.

These photos are from a hike we did when we were back in Oberammergau, Germany.

We rode up in the cable car did a hike at the top. Sounds like a cheat but the hike was still sufficiently rigorous and cable cars are fun.

We were about to follow the kids to a peak when we noticed that the climbers descending were using safety harnesses and wearing helmets. No peak for us.

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Slovenian cooking class (a.k.a we are really missing Ecuadorian food)

This morning Ethan dramatically walked into the living room and simply yelled, “Cottage cheese! In a dessert!” Let’s just say he was not a big fan of the cooking class I dragged him to last night. And although I thought the “dessert” was okay, the  other food was, well, I guess I would say… okay.

Appetizers: cottage cheese with pumpkin oil, cottage cheese with garlic, cheese with peach jam and some meat spread with pig skin. Sorry for the lack of actual names of these dishes. I have not yet received the email from the cooking instructor with the recipes and I can’t recall the names.

     

Main dish: bulgar with onion, garlic, mixed herbs and my favorite… mushrooms! Some of you know I don’t like mushrooms. I did manage to swallow them. It wasn’t horrible. But even if the dish contained a vegetable I liked, it still would have lacked flavor. Ethan reports the chicken was good, although it had no seasoning except salt.

      

Above is the “dessert”, štruklj, that Ethan was still complaining about this morning. After rolling the dough thin, we filled it with a cottage cheese, sugar and egg mix. We then rolled it into a log, wrapped it in a cotton cloth and boiled it for 20 minutes. Interesting, and again… okay.

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Bavarian Food

Being a vegetarian I wasn’t looking forward to Bavarian food. Then I discovered käsespätzle, or Bavarian mac and cheese with fried onions. Each time the waiter would put it down I would say, “wow, that is a huge portion”. Then I would proceed to gobble it down because I love mac and cheese! In fact, I can talk about different mac and cheeses almost as long as Logan can talk about desserts. Also, it turns out käsespätzle tastes great with beer… just like Kraft mac & cheese taste great with coke. I will admit the käsespätzle and beer are of a much higher quality. But Kraft and Coke is the taste of my childhood.

The rest of the family ate sausages. I did not take photos of all the sausages, although there were lots of different kinds. There appears to be a picture of some meat too… not sure what animal. (Addendum: Matthew just read my post and informs me that the meat below is boiled ox. And I recall he and Ethan seemed to like it).

And once I got obatzda (Bavarian cheese spread) instead of the mac and cheese. Sadness followed.

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I figured out why I love Ljubljana

Yesterday we went on a free walking tour of Ljubljana. Our guide told us about the history and architecture as we roamed through the central city. The Ljubljanans are very proud of the Slovenian architect, Plečnik (1872-1957). The website for the city explains that “the multitude of his creations in the city, referred to as a whole as “Plečnik’s Ljubljana”, is considered to be one of the 20th century’s most important total works of art.” Our guide simply pointed out that he really liked columns. Per the guide,  “if you see a column in the city, Plecnik designed it”. And there are columns everywhere (except apparently in the photos I took yesterday). 

But it is not the columns that make me love Ljubljana. It is the fact that you can walk forever in the city without running into (or getting run over) by a car. The guide explained that in 2007 the central city was turned into a car free zone. There was chaos at first as everyone tried to figure out how to get from point A to point B, but over the years it created a vibrant, central space that is full of cafes and gathering spots.

The article below shows before and after photos of some of the spaces. It amazes me that the leaders had the guts to do this, and the results are impressive.

Ljubljana – The European Green Capital 2016

Ethan can always be located near the tour guide.

If you look closely, you can see a castle on the hill above the town. There are stories of a dragon living in the hill. Per the guide, the dragon stories can be traced back to the legend of Jason and the Argonauts. The dragon gets blamed for fires, earthquakes (turning over) and thunder (caused by his hunger pangs).

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Oberammergau, Germany

We arrived in Ljubljana, Slovenia a few days ago and so far I love the city. I don’t often “love” cities as they are generally full of traffic and people. But Ljubljana has blocks and blocks of pedestrian only streets dotted with cafes and ice cream stands (happy Logan). Yet the streets are not overly crowded with pedestrians (happy Natalie). The down side to our new home is the pitifully slow internet and broken washing machine (sad/angry Matthew).

My blog has not kept up with our pace of travel. So instead of pictures of Ljubljana, I have a few pictures from a hike in Oberammergau, Germany two weeks ago. It was sunny and we still had clean clothes. Good times.

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Bad Kohlgrub

We arrived in Bad Kohlgrub a week ago and have been busy hiking and touring. Matthew takes the good photos so I will post the castles and Alps when I have them. In the meantime,  here are a few photos from around town.

    

Above: Hiking on our first day… seems we always head to trails and parks first. In fact, I notice I don’t actually have any pictures of the town. Bad Kohlgrub is a tiny town with a market, bakery, grocery and a bank that does not exchange money or give change for large bills (unclear what they do).

Park with chess.

Local park that we visit daily. The kids never bore of a zip line or merry-go-round. And I just discovered that I no longer enjoy a merry-go-round. The kids swear that it was going VERY slow. But I thought I was going to vomit after seconds and it gave me a headache. Feeling old. (Notice sheep in the background… again, a small town)

Random house. Matthew liked the flowers.

View in the morning when I walk to buy fresh bread from the bakery.

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Happy Birthday Ethan

     

Ethan turned 14 yesterday while we were here in Bad Kohlgrub, Germany. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted so Logan got him some pens and candy from the supermarket and Matthew and I got him a chocolate bar with a picture of the town on it. I also managed to order a cake from the bakery.

The Chinese / Thai restaurant he wanted to eat at was closed, but we found some tasty Italian.

And yes, if you haven’t seen already, Ethan got a haircut.

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Weekend in London

      

After leaving Ecuador we spent two weeks in North Carolina so that the kids could go to Camp Kanata and we could see family and friends one last time before we disappear for the year. We then headed to London to visit friends from Residency days in Cleveland.

Mostly we hung out and enjoyed Shivani’s amazing home cooked meals. On Saturday we roamed around town taking lots of “short cuts” led by Sandeep, visited Westminster Abbey and had lunch at Borough Market.

  

While I appreciate all of the wonderful recommendations from friends of sites we would enjoy in London, Sunday I went off the list and chose the Imperial War Museum. It was what I wanted to see and since I am in charge of home schooling I declared it our curriculum.