Atrani, The Emalfi Coast, Italy June 18th - June 25th

Atrani, The Emalfi Coast, Italy – we arrived in Atrani at 16:00 hrs after a nice drive down the A1 and A3 highways of central Italy.  The rental car we had was a Lancia, a very nice comfortable car.  When we turned off the highway for Atrani at Salerno the road signs indicated 20KMS to our destination. My GPS told me 20kms and an approximate travel time of 55 minutes, I didn’t particularly pay much attention to the time as I thought the GPS may be overly cautious in its timing. 

Well shortly after leaving Salerno the road started to climb and climb and climb and then we descended followed by another climb on switchbacks all the way.  The GPS had been correct in the timing if there hadn’t been a multitude of large vehicles on the road at this time.  Every corner where anything bigger than a midsized car met there was a jockeying back and forth to get the two vehicles by each other.  The bus drivers in particular are magicians at squeezing two huge buses by each other with only inches to spare on either side.

                                                         Traffic on coast road

When we arrived at our apartment our hosts (mother and daughter) met us and directed us into their garage which was dug right out of the side of the mountain.  It was very modern and could accommodate at least ten cars.  They helped us unload our luggage and groceries which we had brought from Florence and directed us to an elevator that would carry us partially up the mountain.  It turns out our apartment is on the highest level of the mountain.  We still had about 65 stairs to climb to the front door of our apartment.

                                              Our apartment entrance through the green doors

                                       Our apartment door, the window on the right is our kitchen

The apartment is very comfortable and had just been totally renovated it was fully air conditioned with a washer and two very large terraces that overlook the coast and the Mediterranean Sea.  The apartment is a 10 minute walk from the town of Amalfi which is a major tourist spot on the coast.

                                                 Our kitchen with steps to the 1st terrace

                                              Bedroom with second terrace through the doors

                                                   View of Atrani from the second terrace

                                 Town of Atrani with the tunnel to Amalfi (from the 2nd terrace)

                                              Our apartment (kitchen door) from the 1st terrace

                                              View of Atrani town beach from the 1st terrace

                                                 Breakfast on the 2nd terrace

                             Bob in tunnel which connects Atrani and Amalfi.  Atrani is in the forefront

                                 The walk from Amalfi to Atrani, Bob with some groceries.

We have taken a couple of day trips to different towns on the coast.  Most are very similar to our town built on the side of the cliffs with stairs and rising roads everywhere.  We also took a day trip through Naples to Pompeii and Vesuvius the Volcano.

View of a road in Pompeii with pedestrian stepping stones so that they would not get their feet or togas wet - chariot wheels passed on either side of the stones.  We saw many grooves in the road from chariots driving by over the years.

Pompeii was extraordinary, a town that was completely engulfed in lava when the volcano Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.  The town was quite well preserved and after excavation a lot of treasures were found as well as buildings relatively unscathed save that the second floor of any buildings that were two stories were no longer there as they collapsed under the weight of the lava.  We visited Vesuvius in the afternoon to see the crater.  It is 16kms from the Pompeii site and is still an active Volcano having last erupted in 1944 during the Second World War.  It has erupted 81 times since 79AD the very first time it blew its top.

                                                  Crater left from Vesuvius eruption

Bob on the edge of the Vesuvius crater, you could smell the sulphur and actually see a small plume of smoke.

                                                               Town of Amalfi

We will spend 8 days here before moving further south to Ostuni on the heel of Italy.  Ostuni is located on the Adriatic Sea.  We will spend 5 nights there before flying to Vienna for a few days and then onto Prague for a month.

Florence, Italy May 20th - June 17th

Florence, Italy - we have been having a great time here in Florence for the last 4 weeks.  Our apartment is wonderful (see http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/italy/it4380.htm).  It is in a great location, is comfortably furnished and most important of all, has a fabulous bed!   And there is so much to do in this city.  The next couple of days ought to be interesting, as a huge fashion conference begins here today.  Of course, ordinary folks cannot get into the special events being held.  But there is sure to be something that we can see.

                                      Bob standing in front of our apartment building doors (Brown Doors)

                                                             The street in front of our apartment building

We have also enjoyed touring around Tuscany.  We went on a private tour one day of several villages in Chianti and had a delicious lunch and wine tasting at a farm, as well as a short tour of their winery. 

                                                 Bob and Sam in the Chianti Hills

                                            Bob and our hostess, Annarita for the wine tasting

             Sam and Bob enjoying the tasty results of a great Tuscan lunch with a lot of great Chianti wine tasting

Yesterday we took the train to Siena and last week we rented a car for two days and visited several walled villages perched up high on the hills.  Our favourites were Radda in Chianti, Pienza and San Gimignano.  We spent the night in Montepulciano, which is charming and has a great wine cellar you can tour on your own.  In Montepulciano, we stayed at a place called the “Meuble Il Riccio” (www.ilriccio.net) .  It was built in 1212 as a Monastery and has been in the present owners family for seven generations.  The room we had has probably the best view I have ever seen  Our room was simple, but as you can see in the attached pictures, the view was stunning! 

                                                The view from our room in Montepulciano

                                                          Wine cellar of a local vintner

                                                Town square San Gimignano

                                                      View from the town wall in Radda 

                                                         Town wall  Pienza                                           

We have visited in Florence all the museums and sights that we had on our list of things to do, most were incredible with works of painters and sculptors that we have heard about all our lives.  But the most interesting thing I find is to just walk around the city.  It is a maze of short little narrow streets and alleys broken up about every three hundred feet or so by piazzas.  In just about every piazza there is a fountain and a statue.  We have also discovered the pleasure of Osterias, these are normally small chef owned restaurants that specialize in cheap, flavourful home style cooking.  We have had wonderful meals at these places both dining in and picking up take away.

                                                                SCENES AROUND FLORENCE

On Friday, we leave for southern Italy and a new adventure

Berlin Germany - May 15th - 20th

Berlin - after spending 5 days with Steven and family, we then spent a week in Berlin.  Berlin is an amazing city.  We visited the last part of the wall, checkpoint Charlie and all the tourist sites.

 
                                                                Part of the old wall

Showing the wall, on the east side there were mines and killing strips, tank traps etc. on the west side the houses went right up to the wall

 Sign where Check Point Charlie used to divide the city and allow passage between the two sides when required.

It was interesting being able to see the two sides of the wall, the former East Berlin and the affluent West Berlin.  There are not a lot of differences that presently stand out, however there are many areas that you know you are in the former East Berlin as many of the buildings and infrastructure is not in a high level of repair.  Many of the apartment buildings are currently going through a re-vitalization but there are many that are still below the normal German standard.

Many of the people that we met who were our age wanted to tell us stories of what it was like before the wall came down.  We met many interesting people and heard some interesting stories. 

One particular restaurant owner that we met and went to her restaurant twice while we were there, showed us old photos of the city before the war, during the war, during the time the city was divided and since the re-amalgamation of the two halves of the city.

                                                             Brandenburg Gate

                                                   Reichstag (German Parliament)

The Cathedral, called the Berliner Dom, was a wonderful visit it was very grand and the stained glass windows and organ were phenomenal.  We spent a few hours visiting the main portion and the large crypt below the church that houses many of the former Royal Germanic Rulers including their wives and children.

                                                         Cathedral "Berliner Dom"                                              

                                                                   Alter "Berliner Dom"

                                                            Organ "Berliner Dom"

We completely enjoyed visiting Berlin on the whole most of the people were very friendly and obliging, it is easy to travel around the city as it has both a modern subway system as well as a very user friendly bus system that is very efficient.

Gangelt – Kreuzrath, Germany (aka Steven’s town) May 10th – 15th

After flying from Athens Greece to Dusseldorf we were picked up at the airport by Steven and taken to his home in Gangelt – Kreuzrath near the NATO base he works at.

We were fortunate that he was home as he had just returned from a rotation to Sicily and just before that had spent 6 weeks in Afghanistan.

We had a very enjoyable and busy visit, Steven, Emmie and the girls are very active in the community and every night there was some activity or gathering of friends.  They have a very large and nice group of friends who visit among each other frequently.

Steven drove us to Dusseldorf on May 15^th and we departed for Berlin, Germany.  Dusseldorf is an approximate 50 minute drive from Steven’s house so we really appreciate his frequent trips to the airport to pick us up and drop us off.

I have attached a few photos of the girls and our visit to their home

           
                                                          The girls on our day of arrival

                                                 The girls prior to having their hair cut

                                           The after shot on their return from the hairdresser

Bob with Emmie's beautiful Sheltie "Mabel"

A really well behaved and friendly dog

Kusadasi, Turkey, May 9th, 2011

Kusadasi, Turkey - Due to the ongoing issues in Egyptian Politics the planned stop in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt had to be cancelled for safety reasons.  So we sailed directly from Israel to Kusadasi, Turkey.  We were a bit disappointed in not seeing Cairo but were pleased that our cruise line did not totally cancel all stops in Egypt as many if not all the other cruise lines completely by passed Egypt due to the unrest.  We did not witness anything that may have given us concern, they did mention there was a larger presence of armed security at many of the tourist sites in case there were some radicals that wanted to start something.

Anyway we ended up going to Kusadasi a port Sam and I had just visited three years previously.  We decided not to do any of the tourist sites as we had done them all on our previous trip.  We opted to just wander around town and Sam wanted to look at some carpet stores.  Unfortunately ( J ) she didn’t find anything that really caught her eye.  She was looking for a carpet to replace our dining room one. 

We spent one full day in Turkey then set sail for Greece in the evening where we disembarked on May 10^th after 45 days on the ship.  All in all I would consider this particular cruise well worth taking as it allowed us to see a lot of spots in the world that we may not have travelled to on our own.

                                                                               
                                                Market area with Mosque in background

                                                                  Our ship in the port

Kusadasi from the tip of the harbour

Israel - Masada, Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee

Masada – we arrived in the Port of Ashdod, Israel and were picked up by our tour guide and driven an hour and a half to a famous Israeli site called Masada.  This sight has both historical and religious significance as it is used as a symbol of Jewish strength of faith and willingness to die for that faith.

The site is on a high butte out in the desert where 300 hundred Jews were trapped by the Roman Legions trying to bring the Jewish rebellion under control.  The Jews fought off the Roman Legions for months and were only defeated after the Romans using hundreds of slaves built a ramp up the side of the butte and were ready to break through the barriers.  The night before this occurred the Jewish combatants and their families decided that they would prefer death to the torture, rape, slavery and imprisonment of the Romans.  The complete community of remaining Jews (men, women and children) a total of 300 hundred committed suicide and when the Romans broke through the barriers the next day they were overwhelmed by what they found.

The Israeli Army takes their special forces and airborne recruits to Masada upon the night of their graduation to present their wings and have them take their oath of loyalty.

These are the Israeli wings that are set ablaze at night during the wings presentation ceremony

One thing we found extraordinary was that there were a lot of Israeli school children on school trips at the site and all the escorts both teachers and assistants were armed with rifles and pistols and each group had a large medical back pack.  Our guide told us it was Israeli law that all teachers escorting students away from the school must be armed to protect the students in the event of an incident.  Of course every able bodied Israeli adult has had military training and knows how to handle a weapon.  I thought it was an interesting way of introducing some class discipline in Canada but Sam said I was being too extreme.

Yuri our Israeli guide standing beside a model of Masada

Walls of Masad looking out over the Dead Sea

School teacher with rifle

                                                         Ramp the Roman Legions built

 Dead Sea – we next drove to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth.  It is some 545 feet below sea level.  As we descended to the valley our ears actually popped.  Once at a spa located on the sea we changed and went for a swim or as close to a swim as you could get in the sea.  The saline levels are so high that it is impossible to sink.  They recommend that you walk out to just above waist level then sit down as if you were going into a chair, you are immediately rolled onto your back.  It is very difficult to stand up and you have to fight to get your legs down.  If you get the water in your eyes or mouth it burns like hell and the only way you get relief is to go ashore and rinse in a fresh water shower.  It was a real bizarre sensation and not one that I found not all that enjoyable, but I am glad I experienced it J

Dead Sea with a canal directly infront to drain off water to get salt.

Jerusalem – after the Dead Sea we drove to Jerusalem for the night.  Our guide picked us up at the hotel after we had a chance to shower and refresh and dropped us off downtown.  The area was very lively with young people however, even here there was an extraordinary amount of weapons as all on duty/uniformed Israeli soldiers actually carry their weapons.

The next morning we toured Jerusalem and followed the Via Dolorosa or “Via Crucis” the path of the Stations of the Cross that Jesus was led to his crucifixion.  It is very interesting as it crosses from the Jewish section to the Armenian section to the Arab section of the city.  At many spots it is hard to understand the religious significance as it is more of a commercial operation than a religious site. For example there was a “T-Shirt shop named the Fourth Station of the Cross T-shirt Shop” it went on to say that they would offer a tourist discount on volume purchases.

We also visited the Wailing Wall.  It is an interesting site as in came about as this was the closest Jews were allowed to the holy sites in Bethlehem, the Jews consider this description of the wall as an insult because it was used by the Palestinians to describe the Jews praying at the wall.  The interesting thing at the wall is that men go to one site and ladies to another.  While there I saw Israeli soldiers praying with their rifles slung over their shoulders alongside of Jewish orthodox worshipers, which the Israelis call “Black Hats” these are the orthodox Jews who wear the black hats and have the long side locks.

Via Dolorosa Station number 4 of the Way of the Cross

I first thought it was Jesus coming back but it was just an American tourist dressed up like him

Wailing wall

Men at the wailing wall women are in a separate area

Bethlehem – in the afternoon our Israeli guide dropped us off at the security wall that separates Jerusalem from Bethlehem and we were picked up by a Palestinian guide, Israelis are not allowed to enter Bethlehem as it is controlled by the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  The Palestinian guide then took us to the area where Jesus was supposedly born and to the churches that had been built to honour different religious occurrences that had occurred in the area.

Site where Jesus was suppose to have been born

We returned to the ship that night and we sailed to the port of Haifa to meet our same guide who drove there.  Haifa was his home town.

Nazareth – our guide picked us up in the port of Haifa and we drove to Nazareth.  At Nazareth we stopped at the church of the Annunciation on the site where the Holy Spirit supposedly told the Virgin Mary she would give birth to Jesus.  We also visited the ancient town where Joseph was born and worked; this town is also thought of as the place where Jesus was raised.  There however does not seem to be any records of his youth.

Door to the church of the Annunciatiom

The Sea of Galilee – in the afternoon we visited the area where Jesus spent his time preaching before his death.  We also visited the River Jordan where Saint John the Baptist was said to have baptized many people.

Benedictine Monastery looking over the Sea of Galilee

Part of our group at the Monastery

People being Baptized in the River Jordan