Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre is a set of five small villages on the Italian coast a bit north of Pisa. They were built right into the side of the mountains, so everything is stacked very close together. Cars are not allowed inside the villages (except for special taxis) because the roads are less than 6 feet wide. The villages are linked only by train and by trails that follow the coast. Because of my pregnant condition, we only dared to do the hike between Riomaggio and Manarola, which is definitely the easiest of the hikes. We spent two days in Cinque Terre walking around the towns, seeing the sights, eating some great pesto and seafood (even anchovies!), and spending a bit of time on the beach. The first night we were there, we were just getting ready to go to bed and we heard some huge BOOMS. We quickly threw on some shoes and ran outside to see what was going on. Over the water, the town was having fireworks in honor of the Catholic holiday of Assumption. It was one of the most beautiful firework shows we have ever seen (doesn’t rival Belmond, IA ground show) and the sounds were amplified because of the water and the mountains. Another neat thing about being there during assumption is that, while we were taking our town tours on foot, we frequently heard singing in the local churches that drifted through the streets to greet us. In Cinque Terre we were also introduced to our first gelatos…yum! Gelato is surprisingly cheap in Italy and amazing delicious- we were averaging about 3 cones a day between the two of us! How many times do you get to eat real gelato though??

Our great cliff-side restaurant.

Ben in Vernazza.

Scenes from Vernazza & Monterosso

The sunset where we ate dinner.

Coastline in Monterosso.

Scenes from Monterosso.

Pisa

We made it back from Italy! Amazingly, being 7 months pregnant didn’t slow us down too much, despite walking 3+miles a day in 90+ degree heat…haha…August in Italy has its pros and cons, that is for sure. We started our journey in Pisa, Italy. I’ll be honest, there really isn’t too much to see in Pisa besides the obvious: the leaning tower of Pisa. So, it turned out to be a good thing that we only spend half a day there. The leaning tower is located in what is called the Field of Miracles, which was basically a religious campus. There is the Duomo (Catherdral), Baptistery, cemetery, bell tower and various museums. It was a bit expensive to climb the tower, but we figured…how can we come to Pisa and NOT climb the tower?? So, up the spiral staircase we went and let me tell you, it was one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced! The tower is definitely leaning, and not just slightly. So as you are climbing the stairs on one side, you feel like you are “falling up.” Maybe it was because I was pregnant, but this effect was double on me- ha! As I climbed the tower, I would literally be stuck to one side of the wall or the other depending on if the stairs were for or against the tilt. After climbing back down the tower, we visited the Duomo, which was beautiful. After our morning adventures, we set out for Cinque Terre, which I’ll write about tomorrow. Until then!

A view of the Duomo from the ground and then from the tower.

View of Pisa from the top of the tower.

Ben holding up the leaning tower...good thing he's Superman!

A nice lady from Ireland took our picture at the top of the tower.

Belly Pictures & Couch

Here is the Belly at 28.5 weeks! Getting closer to D-day and getting bigger! Sorry for the poor picture quality- we always forget to take pictures when Ben can take them...I end up trying to take them during the day by myself...haha

Ben and Luna snuggling. One of Luna's favorite things to do is to get some snuggle time with Dad :)

We finally have our couch! It was quite a fiasco getting that poor couch up to our apartment! It was supposed to be resolved around 9:30am…by 11:30 we were discussing what kind of couch we should buy because the movers seemed to be out of idea. But, they returned in the afternoon with more men and another rope and this is how our couch arrived…

Le Chateau Feodal

On the first on August, we took a road trip to La Roche, Belgium to visit a medieval festival at le Chateau Feodal (a medieval castle). The castle was built in the 9th century and is still in pretty good condition. It is amazing that something build so long ago still stands- it seems as though it was literally carved into the rock. The town of La Roche is very small and mainly known for the castle, so everything seems to revolve around castle themes- the lights decorating La Roche are shaped like the castle ghost; themed tourist shops offer “castle-esck” mementos; and costumed minstrels can be seen playing music in the cobblestone streets. The trek up to the castle was brutal, but we finally made it! Inside we saw sword fighting demonstrations, various authentic booths selling meats, cheeses, swords, shield, etc, falcon hunting demonstrations, singing minstrels, and lots of people dressed in medieval attire. The castle ruins were fascinating, but would have been a bit more meaningful if we had been able to understand what the guides were saying…everything was in French or Dutch, so we had to guess! We had too many cool pictures to post on the blog, so check out my facebook page for more castle pics if you are interested.


The Castle in the distance.

Harp player, hunchback (rough job- I wonder who drew the short stick??), and other medieval people- you can't see here, but they were drinking from authentic tankards- think Lord of the Rings

The falcon show.

A view of La Roche from the top of the castle.

Sword fighting demonstration...was really funny- at least everyone around us was laughing- we had no idea what was going on!

A knight in (if I can remember from my 6th grade medieval unit) chainmail.

Singing minstrels.

The murder hole. We had to walk down a tiny, rather dangerous stone staircase to get here and it was basically a small room where they murdered people...yikes.

I caught one of the castle guards (right) sleeping...don't know if that was part of his act or if he was actually trying to nap! The townspeople really took their medieval roles seriously. For example: just inside the gate was a "crazy" man who was talking to a sheepskin and shaking his tin cup for donations. He was really impressive at being crazy- screaming, moaning, a shriek every now and again for good measure.

We were really just trying to get a picture of the medieval people coming down the steps...

A church at the foot of the castle- it's now an art museum.

Castle ghost lights light up La Roche at night (kind of like Christmas lights in the States, but this one if a picture of the ghosts- The festival of lights may want to consider and addition next year.)

You can see the castle in the distance.

Our french fry cup at the lunch restaurant. Fries are almost always served in cones. Ben ordered a tropical fruit juice drink and it arrived while I was in the bathroom. When I got back he said, "Taste this...it kinds tastes different." I declined and he kept drinking. At the end of the meal as Ben is uncomfortably rubbing his stomach he says- "hmmm, do you think that juice drink had alcohol in it?" I smelled his glass and reeled back- it had a very strong alcohol smell. haha, Ben said, "Really?!? I can't smell anything!" This is actually the 2nd time that Ben had inadvertently ordered an alcoholic beverage, so we decided that if he thinks it tastes funny, pass it to me and I'll do the smell test to determine drinkability. It was pretty halarious.

La Roche plaza.

The Battle of Waterloo

Last weekend we decided that, after two weeks, we were settled enough to take a fun Saturday trip to somewhere outside Brussels. The place? The site of Napoleon’s final battle: Waterloo. We learned about the battle lines and strategy (through an engaging light/slide show…I’m joking about the engaging- Ben’s comment afterwards was, “…And that was put together by the local grade schools!” HA- it did resemble a science fair project). We then saw a video about the battle, which was actually very interesting- learned a lot! From the video, they funneled us outside to the actual battlefield. A giant hill (300 cubic meters of dirt) with a statue of a Lion on top was built on the battlefield to commemorate those who lost their lives. Apparently the battle was pretty much Napoleon and his followers against the whole of Europe and Prussia- Yikes. They say that over 47,000 were killed or wounded- double Yikes and hence the memorial. We watched marching practice, witnessed a pirate throwing knives (I have no idea what he was doing off his pirate ship or why he was there as I’m fairly certain the battle of Waterloo did not include pirates, but he was pretty cool anyway), climbed to the top of the hill (my calves hurt for a week), saw one of the largest battle paintings every made (longer than a football field!), and visited a sweet wax museum. Overall, it was a pretty fun experience- next week we travel to a medieval festival in an authentic medieval castle complete with murder holes, oubliettes, and a castle ghost, so until next week!

Ben at the top of the giant hill. Marching pratice...they needed a bit of work...good effort though!

The Lion with the paw on the world. Once we got to the top of the hill, this is all we could see of the Lion...hmmm

View of the battlefield.

Climbing the giant hill.

Ben at the bottom of the hill- he looks pretty happy before the climb- doesn't he?

Me with the marching people. See the guy with the mustache in the background? He decided I needed a bit more adornment for the photo...see next...It was a pretty heavy hat- my head felt like it was leaning- can you tell?

The of the hill from below.

Hill info.