Hotel Flora in Frascati

We arrived in Frascati and at the hotel where we first spent our honeymoon. I had forgotten how beautiful the hotel was. the grounds are lovely with beautiful flowers and trees. It is hard to believe the camelias and other flowers are blooming. We met Alex and Izabel for dinner. Alex works with Mike and he and his wife live in Toulouse, France. Izabel and I decided to explore Frascati the next day. We met after lunch and wandered through the small town of Frascati, hoping to shop but all the stores were closed for lunch so we headed up the street and saw some signs leading to a Villa. Along the way we met a man who spoke english and seemed to be having a difficult time walking. Wasn't sure if he was drunk or just disabled. I think a little bit of both. We let him convince us to see the villa where he worked and he was right it was very beautiful with many statues and a lovely fountain. He kept showing us around and wanted us to come to his home behind the villa. We decided that wasn't a good idea and he didn't seem too happy with us.

Rome with friends

On Saturday we arrived in Rome and had dinner with two other Italian friends from University of Colorado, Paulo and his wife Mare Ana and Sebastiano and his wife. Sebastiano had driven up from Naples. We had not seen him for many years. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed the beautiful piano playing of Paulo's son, Mario. We pledged to all stay in closer contact that it had been way too long. The next morning Paulo took us on a tour of Rome and we did a tour of the Coliseum. We did the audio tour and it was so much better understanding what you were seeing. Then a mad dash to the airport for Ates and Canan to catch their flight. We then traveled about 30 minutes outside of Rome to Frascati.

Orvieto, Italy

Perugia and Italian friends

Friday afternoon we headed two hours away to Perugia to visit with Vincenzo and his family. When we arrived it was snowing! It has been very cold on this trip. We had a lovely and delicious dinner with Vincenzo, Teresa, Allesandro, and Luigi. Ates and Canan had not seen Vincenzo in thirty years, since Boulder. Mike and I had visited with Vincenzo two summers ago. It was so nice to catch up. Teresa is an excellent cook and is so warm and hospitable. The next day we toured the beautiful medieval city of Perugia. It is known for its chocolate, Perugina, and for its famous jazz festival held each June. The city is so peaceful and relaxed. I would love to stay for a much longer time. We then traveled about an hour away to Orvieto also in the region of Umbria where we toured a beautiful cathedral, I think one of the loveliest we have seen thus far. The cathedrals certainly accomplished the goal of looking towards heaven and making you realize just how small we are in God's creation.

Florence, Italy

We made it to Florence but not without some difficulty getting around in the city and finding the public garage. We met our Turkish friends, Ates and Canan at the hotel and we all went out to a nice dinner that was recomended by her daughter, Ceyda. We toured Florence the next day, Ates and Canan going to the Uffizi gallery to see art and Mike and I to a science museum and an exhibition of crystals which of course Mike enjoyed greatly. We finished the day going inside the famous Duomo. We didn't really have enough time in Florence, there is so very much to see in this beautiful city.

Venice Pictures

Venice is Beautiful even if it is a cold grey day

Venice is so lovely! I spent the first part of the day just exploring the many streets and paths that wind there way through the city. Lots of wonderful shops and great art work. Mike was not feeling well, has a stomach bug so I went out on my own in the morning and then he joined me in the afternoon. San Marco square and the basilica were amazing, the stone work is something to see. The Doges Palace, the home of Venetian rulers and the seat of government was most interesting to tour. Hopefully Mike will feel better tomorrow so he can enjoy this beautiful city. Enjoy the pics.

Trip to Venice

I guess it was Tuesday when we left Spoleto and started on our way to Venice. We saw lots of lovely countryside along the way. We had a small detour off the main road but that was okay because Mike got to see mountains of clay shale, the kind that he based his geotechnical dissertation on for his PhD. We made a brief stop in Ravenna and visited a very old Byzantine church with some amazing stone work and mosaics. Although the entry fee was a bit overpriced. Ravenna was a lovely city with everyone riding their bicycles along the sidewalks. We then continued to Venice where we should have arrived in about two hours but instead because of the poor signs along the highways and roads, along with a detour into the fog covered, dark, isolated prostitute ridden back roads we finally arrived at the boat docks four hours later, only to find that the boat we needed to take was on strike! Mike says he has yet to come to Italy when he did not encounter a strike with some means of transportation. At first we understood the lady to say all boats were on strike, that would have been disastrous so when we found we would just simply have to walk a greater distance with our luggage I was relieved. We crossed San Marco square, lovely and quiet late at night and crossed about four bridges with our luggage, (glad I packed light)we arrived at Hotel Residenza. We circled it once since we could not find how to enter to return to the door and searched for the hidden door bell in the lions mouth. Okay by now we are hungry, frustrated, cold and tired. The lady at the hotel seemed very glad to see us because she had to stay late waiting on our arrival. Both of us were very surprised when we found out that we were not the couple she was waiting on and that we had the WRONG hotel! AHHHHH! My fault, I had made the reservation at a different hotel than we had planned. The hotel where our reservation was all the way across the city near the train station. It didn't take much convincing by Mike for us to just forget that reservation and stay where we had arrived. Luckily they had room for us. Only the life is expensive! We feel asleep hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Spoleto, Italy

We have arrived safe and sound. Travel went very smoothly, except for the journey through the Rome airport to find the rental car agency. The trip up to the region of Umbria was lovely. I have never seen such green grass, it looked like it had been spray painted lime green. There were sheep grazing all along the highway. Spoleto is a very small city in the southern part of Umbria and we arrived about noon. We decided to sleep until 3pm and then go exploring. When we awoke the sun was shining but not for long. The central and ancient part of the city is way at the top of a very tall hill and we were at the bottom. Oh, well I said I needed to walk while on this trip. Finding our way around should not have been difficult but we would head up the hill only to find that the next road we took lead us back down so we made the climb several times. The streets were not very crowded, just a few people coming and going. We first looked for an ancient Roman amphitheater only to find a dead end and a home for Italian cats. We continued on up looking for the il Douomo and the Castle of the Rock. While studying our map on a street corner, a nice lady came up and asked us if we were American and where we were from. Her name was Franscesca Owens and she had moved to Spoleto from Colorado. She was very friendly and told us that she had come to Spoleto with her daughter after she had a very debiltating stroke. She had been a stock broker in New York and held public office in Colorado and life in Italy was much more peaceful for her. She said life was good now but she had come along way , only a few years ago she was seriously considering ending her life. She is now an artist and told us to go to her website franscescaowens.com to see her art.

She gave us some directions and suggestions for good restaurants and asked us to pray for her. She is in the final stages of getting disability from the state of Colorado and needs a larger apartment. Interesting who God puts in your path along the way.

Well it started to rain and we continued to get lost but we did find il Duomo and it was beautful on the outside, but had closed so we did not get to go in. About this time we are pretty wet and hungry but it is only 6:00pm and restaurants don't open until 7:30pm. We found a bar with some snacks and tried to dry off. We did finally get to the resturant, La Lanterna, and had some delicious spaghetti carbonara. It did not take us long to come down the mountain, much quicker than going up and straight to bed!