...and back again

Well all good things come to an end eventually.  Our trip was officially over at the end of the day today, and it wasn't a very fun day either.  We woke up to our alarms at 4:30.  Luckily we had packed everything up last night and all we had to do was put our pajamas into one of the backpacks and change into our traveling clothes, which were set out.  We left the hotel around 5 after Melissa had the front desk call a cab (made sure it was a van) and we all piled in. It was probably 5:20 or so when we got to the airport and checked in. The woman working the desk was astounded in our packing:

"You have 6 people?"     yes

"Four Kids??"    yes

"No checked bags?!?!?"     yes

"....I love your family."

She wasn't the only one today to be amazed at how little we had packed for such a long trip either. We had comments from other travelers, customs workers, and stewardesses.  But back to the nitty-gritty...  Our first flight was about 2 hours, from Naples to Frankfurt, Germany. Our seats were not booked together, and it wouldn't let us check in and reserve any, but we were assured by the family-lover that we could get that worked out when boarding, but nobody ever told anyone else, because when finally somebody came to the gangway desk and we brought it up, she couldn't do anything either, and assured it could be done in the plane.  So they made us wait until EVERYONE else was seated, and then one of the stewards politely asked people if they would like to change seats. To a worse seat. Probably without mentioning they were trying to seat a family together. Eventually they got 2 seats together so Melis and Katie could sit, and a time later they got 2 seats across the aisle and Mary and Joey sat there.  And then nobody else would move. We asked if they could offer the people to sit in business class but apparently they couldn't offer upgrades like that. But the steward was getting pretty irritated and finally just said to us, "okay just sit there (business class), we don't have any meals for you but we need to leave so just sit there, it'll be fine".  Okay that was reassuring I guess, but I'd like to sit and take off please, so we sat there. I was surprised how little difference there was between business class and the cheap seats, other than a little more butt and leg room. Not really worth the difference in price to me, but that's me.

Once in Frankfurt we had a pretty short layover, and kinda had to do the same process all over again.  Our seats were all over the place, but Melissa handled the woman at the desk while I ran over and got some plane snacks for the kids.  And I guess the woman told Melis that she could have gone and reserved seats herself, for only a small fee of 25 Euros, per person, per leg of the trip. Umm, for about $500, no I think we will just have you change them now. For free.

We boarded for this flight and after a little while I was tapped on my shoulder.  Excuse me I think you're in my seat. No they changed things at the desk, my ticket is for this seat since I'm with my kids. No, I booked this seat when I bought it, see here's my ticket.  No they changes things at the desk, I need to sit by my kids.  Well I don't know since this was my seat all along.  Fine. So we went and talked to the stewardess about it, and then she had to call the desk, and then someone had to make the decision that, yes someone with 2 kids needs to sit next to them and she needed to move to the other seat. Which was still an aisle seat, and a little further up the plane. I understand that she didn't get to sit next to her friends, but so be it.  She really was pretty good about the whole thing, more irritated that it would happen.  This flight was 9 hours or so, and we just watched movies the whole time, other than taking Joey and Lily to the bathroom like 5 times, and it's not easy to fit 2 people into those little bathrooms. Melis got Katie to sleep for a few hours, so I'm sure her flight was much better than on the way here. Mary occupied herself the whole time which was awesome.

We got to O'hare and the way their international terminal is situated is stupid. You have to take a train over to the main terminals, outside security by the way, so we had to go back through security a second time. Why they couldn't have that train go to the secure side I don't know, but there it is. Oh, you have like one ounce of water in your bottles, so we have to check things. We can't drink it or throw it out here, it has to be on the other side of security, and then have to send the empty bottle back through the scanner to make sure that there's nothing inside. Even though they were the ones dumping said bottle. Still gotta take our shoes off too. I'm a little sour of the whole thing, even though I should have known better.  Good thing we had 3 hours layover, because it was almost an hour and a half spent waiting in this security line.

We killed the rest of the time and boarded our plane. Lily was asleep before we even took off, after all we had been travelling for the last 16 hours.  And then we took off and 20-50 minutes later we were home. We were a bit loopy so I don't know how long a flight it actually was. My dad was waiting for us right outside security and told us he thought he saw Melissa's aunt Karen.  It turns out they were on their way back from a little trip of their own and they must have been on THE EXACT SAME PLANE. They had been bumped to first class and arrived after we had already boarded, and if they hadn't been bumped would have been sitting like 2 rows in front of us. It's a small world sometimes.

Half an hour after Dad picked us up we were back in our own house, and probably half an hour after getting inside our house we were back in our own beds.  We had gone there and back again, and it's something that we [hopefully] won't ever forget.

We Climbed a Volcano!

Today was our last day of sightseeing in Italy, as our flight home was very early the next morning. Joey in particular was especially excited about our plans on this day, as he had been looking forward to it the entire trip - climbing Mount Vesuvius and visiting the ruins of Pompeii!

We got up early and walked towards the train station. This is the view of Vesuvius from just outside our hotel.

It was a little confusing, but we managed to sort out our own self-organized trip to Pompeii and Vesuvius rather than booking with some kind of coach bus tour group, which would have been more expensive and lacked the flexibility our family needs. I wish I would have written down the details because now I can't remember them. We bought commuter train tickets on the Circumvesuviana Railway from Naples to Pompeii Scavi, a stop that was much closer to the base of Vesuvius. These weren't nice, clean, on-time trains like the ones in Switzerland. These were more like a city metro, loud and crowded, and definitely not running on schedule. But we bought some pastries for breakfast, squeezed ourselves onto a bench (well, everyone except dad), and waited for our train.

Mary wore through her pants by this point on the trip! We threw them out later that night - not worth bringing home again!

Once on the train, we were entertained for a little while by some musicians who boarded and played one of my favorite Italian songs. When we got off the train, we saw lots of coach buses and people and signs trying to get you to sign up for a guided tour to the top of Vesuvius. We had read about these, and had a better plan in mind. Inside the station we found a poster with a timetable of a public bus service to the top of Vesuvius. The fare is much cheaper than with any of the other buses available, and there were several departures/arrivals throughout the day. We didn't have to wait long for the blue bus to arrive to take us to the top, and we were able to buy tickets directly from the bus driver. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the ONLY ones on this bus! It was a nice coach bus, no different than all the others lined up to collect tourists, other than the fact that it was cheaper and there were no pushy people trying to get you to buy tickets for it. We also noticed that many of those other buses sat around waiting while the tour guides tried to collect enough people to fill them up, while ours headed right up the mountain on schedule!

The bus ride up Vesuvius was long and winding, but with excellent views of the Gulf of Naples.

Lava dome formation

We had to buy separate tickets to enter the park and hike up to the crater at the top of Mount Vesuvius. The weather forecast for the day had been a little worrisome - there was a chance of clouds and rain - so we weren't sure if we would have any kind of a view from the top. However, luck seemed to be on our side! We started hiking up around 11:00 am, and made it to the top by 11:30 - even hiking at kid-pace, and had plenty of great views of the surrounding Gulf of Naples.

We made it! Getting ready to hike up to the crater!

Hiking up...

And up!

At the top we got to look down into the crater. At some points you could smell sulfurous fumes, and you could definitely see steam rising up from the crater. The kids all thought it was amazing that we were on top of an active volcano! Here is a video showing the crater, and here is a video of Mary and Joey talking about their experience.

View inside the crater

Inside the crater

Top of Vesuvius

Mary and the crater atop Vesuvius

Lily and the volcano

Joey was on top of the world today! He absolutely LOVED getting to see a real volcano up close!

While we were at the top, some clouds blew in, and totally obscured our view of the Bay of Naples. The kids were actually super excited about this. "We are INSIDE A CLOUD!!!" "I'm EATING the CLOUDS!" 

We ate our packed lunch at the top, and then headed back down the mountain. Here we are disappearing down into the clouds.

Unfortunately no climbing is permitted. It really did look dangerous though - lots of loose gravelly rock.

View of the path heading down. There were other tourists there, but it was not very crowded. Some local school groups were hiking that day as well.

After a short time the clouds parted again, and we had great views of the gulf once more.

The kids bought some souvenirs at Vesuvius. Joey bought a little collection of volcanic rocks, all neatly laid out in a wooden box and labeled in Italian. Lily bought a tiny replica of Vesuvius exploding. Mary bought a necklace with a turtle charm made from volcanic rock. Our bus showed up right on time, and once again we were the only ones on board! I can't believe more people don't know about this option! The bus took us back to the train station, and it was a short walk from there to the ruined city of Pompeii. It was too bad that we only had a few hours in the afternoon to tour this vast city. I could have spent days there wandering from house to house and reading all the descriptions in all the guidebooks. However, I think for the kids one afternoon was a good amount of time. We did end up cutting our visit a little short, as it started to rain and we hadn't packed our umbrellas. This was actually my fault, as Joe had packed them, and I had said the chance of rain was so small that we probably wouldn't need them. Karma? In any case, we already had like ten umbrellas in our possession on this trip and the kids were ready to go, so we headed for the hotel in Naples rather than buying more umbrellas so we could look at Pompeii in the rain.

Inside the city's amphitheater. It was similar to the Colosseum, but much smaller. Like the Colosseum, battles to the death between gladiators and animals were staged here for Roman entertainment. 

Joey in Pompeii. You can see the outside of the amphitheater in the background.

Ancient Roman street crossing! In the evenings, the streets were flushed with water to wash away daily debris. These stepping stones allowed pedestrians to cross the street without getting wet. The space between the rocks allowed for chariots to pass. This was a moderately busy street, with enough lanes for chariots to pass in two directions. There were also smaller, one lane streets, and even larger streets with three or four lanes. I thought it was really cool that you could see places where chariot wheels had worn grooves into the stones.

Joe standing just outside the main gate to the city of Pompeii. The larger archway was the main entrance, open during the day to let chariots enter the city. At night only the smaller, guarded arched entrance was open.

It turns out these columns were not ruined during the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii. There was a large earthquake about 18 years before that eruption that left much of the city in ruins. Here is where the ancient Roman people were beginning construction of a new temple area.

Inside an ancient bath house

This was one of many restaurants on one of the main streets of Pompeii. You could see the grooves in the doorsteps of where the sliding doors would have been. There were holes in the counter tops where hot food would be on display in large dishes for sale. Ancient fast food! 

Ancient "Beware of Dog" mosaic entryway

Ancient welcome mat mosaic

Fountain in the courtyard of one of the largest and most impressive houses in the ancient city of Pompeii

Mosaic showing Alexander the Great in battle

Interesting floor mosaic pattern

More chariot grooves

Carved sculpture inside the city's theater. In the background you can see that Katie has just retrieved a piece of garbage that looks like a used tissue which a previous visitor had wedged into the support scaffolding, and I am about to snatch it away in disgust. 

This was a nice place to visit with kids - there was lots of room for them to run around and explore.

Plaster cast of one of the victims of the volcanic eruption that destoryed Pompeii

Katie with ruined remains of a chariot wheel

As we were leaving, thunder was heard booming in the distance, and Vesuvius was visible in the background, so of course the kids re-enacted the ancient Romans fleeing the city as the volcano erupted.

Far in the distance you can see small holes inside of stone squares sticking off the outer walls of the city. Those were for tying up ships, as this used to be the edge of the sea! It is now located thousands of feet further away as a result of the lava flows after the eruption.

Back at the hotel there was some debate about what to do for dinner. I wanted to do one last Italian restaurant, but the kids were longing for comfort food. We ended up getting fried chicken and french fries and burgers for dinner, but we did go out for gelato one last time. Then it was time to pack up everything and get ready for our flight home. We had to get up very early, as our flight left at 7:00 am. We put the kids to bed, lined our backpacks and traveling clothes up near the door, and settled in for one last European night. It had been an amazing adventure, but we were all looking forward to sleeping in our very own beds at home again.

Vatican!

We woke up to our last morning in Rome. Today's plan - Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica! We left our apartment at 8:45 am and walked to the Basilica and got in line at 9:00 am - our apartment was really within walking distance of everything, which was great!

Swiss Guard!

The middle door, known as "The Filarete Door", is the oldest door.

Probably the most famous door at the Vatican is "The Holy Door" - unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of it. We weren't aware that it would be open during our visit, but it turns out that it's kind of a big deal that we were able to walk through it. Apparently, they are usually sealed with mortar and cement from the inside so they cannot be opened, except for every 25 years!

Michelangelo's Pietà

Unfortunately our visit at the Vatican was somewhat rushed, as we had to get back to our Airbnb apartment to check out and then catch a train to Naples. Here's some photos from inside St. Peter's - we definitely want to come back to Rome and visit another time!

They had several confessionals open in various languages. Mary and Joey both wanted to go to confession at the Vatican - it was a really memorable experience.

We visited the gift shop at the Vatican and the kids each picked out something. Mary chose a rosary, and also bought one for Grandma, Joey chose a crucifix for his bedroom, and Lily chose a miniature nativity set. Then we had to run back to our apartment and catch the train to Naples.

The kids loved the giant pink snail outside the train station in Naples!

We are nearing the end of our grand European adventure! For the last leg of our trip we booked a hotel room instead of Airbnb, as we wanted to guarantee we would be nice and close to the train station for our early morning plane flight home. We'll have two nights in the hotel - tomorrow we will visit Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius, and the next day we will fly home!