Bali Bound

Day 7 Last touring day already, it feels like this week has just flown by. Mom ended up staying behind at the hotel while I adventured around the city a little bit.  I think she had the far more exciting day, what with watching the transit workers doing their marches on the main road a block away from the hotel.  We also encountered them on Saturday on the way to the airport, our poor driver was frustrated with getting through traffic with all the closed roads. We have since learned that the transit strike was for more than just the trains, it also affected buses and the metro.  They slow the services during the day to make a point.  Or as I learned with the metro, they turn off all the escalators.  And it's all planned in advance.  We lucked out that it didn't interfere with our travel plans. Piazza del Popolo from Garden I checked out the Piazza del Popolo in the daytime.  This is where we met our Pompeii tour, but it was dark and foggy and everything was closed.

Day 6 I find it amazing to say that day 6 has brought us to a day where we've seen everything on the must see list and now we're just checking out extra, leftover places that we were okay without seeing.  Not to say we didn't see anything worth seeing as we still found a few interesting stops. We took a different metro line, Line B.  It's confusing.  You have to pick the right entrance for the direction you want to go.  Northbound one entrance, southbound a different entrance.  We lucked out on the way there but were really lost on the way back.  We did eventually figure it out.  Also the stations were nuts.  There were sooo many people and then we were pushed towards the wrong exit and ended up walking in circles to get out.  We finally found an escape and the fresh air was a nice find!  We made it back to the hotel without any issues, well except that I was awake enough to notice that there was a big gelateria a block away from the hotel.  Which I hadn't noti

Day 5 Today was our last day trip out of Rome.  I make it sound like we were always off some some exotic adventure when really it's just us wandering around the streets of Rome with our tourist map looking for something exciting or a metro stop. One thing I haven't mentioned is the water fountains.  The ancient Romans were far more advanced than modern Romans.  Our tour guide in Pompeii mentioned that people in Pompeii willing and able to pay had running water in their homes, where when he grew up in the 70's they had no option for running water in their homes, they had to go to the fountains for water.  But they still have the old aqua ducts and while there are few public bathrooms there is ample cold running water at fountains spread across the city, and even in Florence.  And the water was delicious, and not all chemically like our water tends to be here.  I miss it a little. But today we ventured out on our own to Pisa and Florence.  As soon as I said Pisa to my

Day 4 We had another lazy start to our day.  Today was Vatican day.  We took the metro over and fortunately it wasn't quite as busy as our first attempt.  It was a quick walk from the metro station to Vatican City, as everything looks far on the map but is far closer than it looks.  Along the way we passed a ton of people offering tours that let you skip the lines.  And boy were the lines long.  And the tour groups got first priority into the Vatican museum. Ceiling in the map room Mosaic floors in Vatican Museum Instead of waiting for a few hours at each place we picked a guide and lucked out with the tour leaving right away.  We got to walk past the gigantic line of people who were waiting.  It was a good moment.  The Vatican museum puts the Louvre to shame a bit.  Our tour was really just the guide pointing out pieces on the way through the museum on the way to the Sistine Chapel.  Which was a special journey.  There were so many other groups and people everywhere.

Day 3 Today was our planned bus trip to Pompeii.  All the books and internet talked about how easy it was to get there.  And then I found the tour that included getting to climb Mount Vesuvius.  Sold. Misty piazza del Popolo It was a good day.  We navigated the metro to the piazza to meet the group.  And it was fun to see the piazza all foggy and empty for the most part.  It was not like that later on in the day.  It was about a 2 hour drive or so to get to Naples which is the closest city to Pompeii.  But we had 2 tour guides so they took turns during the drive there and back to share details of what to expect and to tell us about the area.  And the big pizza lesson before we were to decide on our lunch selection. The climb to the volcano crater was a little tough but doable.  It was a little tricky as the path was made of some sort of fine gravel mixture that was almost like walking in sand.  The views were pretty good even if much of it was covered with clouds!  It was a

Day 2 We had a leisurely start to our day.  Staying up that long is tiring, I think it was a 29 hour day by the time we went to bed!  Our hotel has a free breakfast which is better than I expected.  Although, I do find the interpretation of an "American Breakfast" funny sometimes.  But what they have is more than enough to keep us going.  And they have 2 types of orange juice, blond and red.  The red is delicious, I miss it already. We started off with taking the metro to the Spanish steps, where I had my first gelato of the day.  The metro is easy and incredibly cheap to use.  Only it can be crazy busy.  We were like sardines in there.  And when you thought you couldn't get anyone else on more people got on.  I had to physically push people out of my way to clear a path to the door. One irritation here is that people have a tendency to just stop where ever they are currently walking.  No  moving off to the side.  And then you have to dodge them and 6 other people

I have made it home and I'm mostly rested.  I'm getting used to the time change again and getting all the regular post vacation things done.  I cleaned out my wallet and was a little ashamed to see how many gelato recipes I had.  But it was everywhere and it was delicious!  So I'm going to start on my full blogs now.  I apologize in advance if some of it is repetitious but you get pictures now so that should even it out.  I hope! ***************************************************************** Day 1 We left Friday morning and arrived Saturday morning, even though we didn't have to travel for 24 hours thankfully.  It's always tough to arrive in the morning to try to get adjusted to the local time.  We did fortunately get a room when we arrived and had a chance to relax and then head out.  As the best cure for jet lag is motion we wandered around our new neighbourhood.  We headed up to the main train station, Termini, to see how far it was and where it was for

The transit strike didn't affect too much.  It did mean they shut down all the escalators in the metro stations and just generally slowed things down.  But to compensate the parking and driving restrictions in the city Centre are dropped so you can just drive to work.  Which means the roads are busier.  But it didn't affect me so I'm good. I walked around a bit of Rome today, hit some different piazzas but I would have been okay if I didn't make it there.  In the afternoon we did a crypt and catacombs tour.  It was really interesting and a nice way to finish the holiday.  But don't worry, we left the undead there, where they belong! We've checked in and mostly packed and it feels real that its home time tomorrow.  But I'm ready to come home.  And hearing the terrible singers from the evangelical Baptist church across the street makes it easier to leave!  And boy do they sing for a long time. Check back in a few days when I'm over jetlag and get pi

Today we've had technical difficulties with the Internet at the hotel.  But it seems to be working.  But if I stand in one spot it works.  So here goes this attempt. We had much success in Pisa and Florence.  The train rides went smooth which was a bonus as I'm hearing that there is a train strike tomorrow across Italy.  They would have been unfortunate. We did find and climb the leaning tower.  It was such a fun experience and we managed to beat most of the crowds which was really lovely. I'm not sure what to say about Florence though.  It was a nice place but 6 hours was almost too much time there.  We spent the last hour and some wandering to waste time.  But I am glad we made it and we have seen the famous David statue. Today we had a sort of easy day.  We meandered around Rome seeing a fee random things.  Tomorrow is our last day.  We have a catacombs tour planned for the afternoon and other than that just see a few last things,  and hope that the train strike

Today was Vatican City day.  We took the metro down there and is that ever a popular destination.  They have 5 million visitors go through there a year and I'm not surprised.  I had read about how long the lineups were so we ended up going with one of the random people on the street for a tour.  It's not as sketchy as it sounds and we ended up having a really nice tour through the Vatican museum and no line up into the basilica.  And we're the lineups something else.  And the museum was packed.  It was at least a 30 minute walk to the sistine chapel at the exit. Also, the things that have the pope on them are nuts.  Bobble heads,  postcards, magnets and more. We also found the Castel Sant Angelo,  which looked farther away on the map.  It was a bit of a special place.  It's an old fortress and was a bit of a maze to get around.  And we had no map so it was all a guessing game.  But still worth the visit. Tomorrow we are off to brave the train to Pisa and Florence

We had a long but good day today.  We did a day trip to pompeii.  We could have taken the train ourselves but I found a tour that included a stop off at Mount Vesuvius.  And the addition was just what I hoped for.  I was a little afraid because I guess they close the mountain access come November and bad weather.  It was cloudy but otherwise good viewing. It was a bit of a hike but had great views when the clouds weren't covering things up.  I actually found the one hike in Waterton to be tougher. Pompeii was impressive.  It is very busy there and there is a lot to see.  We did get a tour included, mostly due to the time restraints but it was good.  It was a surreal feeling to be walking around on roads and past shops that were filled with people living their lives until the volcano blew.  

Randomness from our day.  We were in an open air market and we were doing a little shopping and happened upon this guy selling kitchen tools.  He is on YouTube if you want to check him out.  It was a pretty entertaining little show he put on.  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r6TSvOtgfmc We did brave the metro.  It is incredibly easy and impressively affordable.  Only it felt like every person in Rome was on the train today!  I literally had to push myself between people to get off.  Crazy.  But nice and fast. Also, my glasses are possessed and I lost another screw today.  But we did find a kind Italian optometrist who gave me a new one for free!  So I can see properly now. We saw a lot today.  Many fountains and piazzas were seen.  Sadly the famous Trevi fountain was closed so we only got to see the bare minimum along the walkway,  which also had a police officer watching us all. Tomorrow is our day trip to Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius,  it should be a long but worthwhile trip.

First I'd like to say that it is freaking hot here.   It's only around 26 at the most but its hot and humid.  And the sun is out with a vengance.  In retrospect I probably should have worn sunscreen...  But that will be a surprise for later. We had a tough day time change wise.  We arrived at 10:30 am, but it felt like 2:30 am.  Woo hoo!  at least our hotel was ready early so we did a little bit of wandering and tried to get our bearings.  We ended up going to the coloseum and were approached about doing a tour and said yes because a friend had recommended it.  It was a tiring day but we had some quality sightseeing and have managed to get our internal clocks a little more oriented to Rome time. A few funny notes, our taxi driver was going 140km down the freeway.  She was a fast driver.  And the best part of the night, we have our window open and can hear a loud conversation from two guys who I'm guessing are American.  "Yeah, Vancouver is closer to Alaska than To

Hello again all!  It's a travel time of year again.  This year, if the headline didn't give it away, I'm off to Rome!  It's in Italy, this is a question I've been asked far more than I was comfortable with... For some housekeeping stuff, I think that I'm going to primarily do the majority of the blogging when I get home.  So then I can include pictures and the like.  But feel free to check in as I'm hoping to do some mini blogs along the way.  Otherwise I'll be home on the 25th and will start soon after. It's going to be a quick week in Rome with my Mom.  We're doing it old school, as in no bus tour.  Just plane tickets and a hotel reservation.  But we do have a day trip to Pompeii booked, and train tickets to head north to Pisa (yes, of the leaning tower!) and Florence.  I'm sure we won't spend nearly as much time as we want there but that's the catch with travelling, you get to see a little but never as much as you want. But

Today we switched things up and explored the SW Alberta area instead.  No hiking for us today.  I think that my legs are okay with that though.  We headed Northwest up to the Crowsnest Pass area using the Cowboy Trail.  Which extends from around this area all the way north to Mayerthorpe.  It was some really lovely country where the prairies meet the mountains.  Which is the motto around here! We had to head through Pincher Creek on our way out and saw another deer grazing on the side of the road.  That's at least 3 we've seen while going through there. We had a random visit to Leitch Collories (an English word for coal mine).  Figured it would be a quick stop but they were offering free tours so we went for it.  I didn't know what to expect but it was a walk through of an old coal mine and they brought the mine back to life really well despite the fact that very little remains.  I feel like I have a really good understanding of how a coal mine runs now.  They had ma

Today we learned the lesson of looking in front instead of up for animals.  When we were heading back to Waterton townsite we turned a corner and there were 2 bighorn sheep right in front of us on the road.  And here Dad has been using his binoculars all the time scanning the basins that looked good for potential sightings.  The sheep stared at us and then ran past and stood in front of another car for a bit.  We were extra close that time!   We started our day out with more hiking.  Hey, Waterton has a lot of awesome hiking and aside from the Waterton Lakes and Cameron Lake you have to hike in to see things, no driving option at all.  We picked Crandell lake first.  The one map I had found online was telling me about how there was a waterfall half way and the waterfall route was the shorter one to get to the lake.  Sold.  We were only going to go as far as the waterfall, only as we were following the signs we realized that there was no waterfall.  On either side.  So we went to

Today was an exceptional wildlife day.  We haven't seen too much yet, aside from a deer on a road in Pincher Creek and the infamous bear rock.  Mom noticed an odd rock in the grass, we slowed down and sure enough, it was furry and moving!  Also, Dad spotted a moose in the slough off the road yesterday and we started a bit of a traffic jam.  That's a good rule in national parks, if there are cars stopped, especially with open windows, chances are really good it's wildlife.  We also saw a few bears, one on the way into the park, which had cubs hiding in the grass we later learned from another tourist, and a bear on the way out of the park.  In the townsite we saw another 2 deer, oddly with a big blue mark on it's head, as well as a deer out in the wild.  I spotted it heading into the trees at Oil City and my Mom went in and flushed it out and we watched the doe eat grass for awhile, and Dad let the tourist who told us about the bear cubs know that the deer was there.  Ar

Today was our first full day on holidays.  The day started out a little strange.  We had breakfast and just as we were cleaning up it clouded over and we had an impressive thunderstorm.  Luckily it was a short storm and the skies cleared and it was a picture perfect day after that.  The storms were a bit of a blessing, as it meant that we had a head start over many people visiting the park.  Being so close we could see that the storm had passed the park so it was really quiet by the time we arrived. Right before you head through the gate to go into the park they have the Bison Paddock Loop.  It's a little roadway through a Bison Paddock.  We did our little drive through and sure enough there were all the bison!  They only had 10 or so and they all seemed to travel as one giant pack through their pasture space.  Except for one.  Mom noticed an odd shape on a hill and Dad pulled out his binoculars and said it looked like a burrow for an animal.  And then as we got closer, sure