Italy...ano

Reader, whoever you might be, I apologize profusely for this ridiculously late blog post.

This is dedicated to the man at the Colosseum who photobombed a picture, embarrassed his wife, and made my day.

(he's waving)

You may or may not be aware that K6UAE went on a joint vacay with M6USA, otherwise known as the Mossman Clan. Heck, this blog post is so late, y'all might have seen all the pictures already. We went to Italy, affectionately called Eataly or Nitaly, depending on who you are talking to. Since this was a really long vacation, and we had some pretty prolific picture-takers to the accompany the stunning sights, I'll use the play-by-play technique.

June 8 (evening): Arriving in Milan and meeting up with the Mossmans:
We... don't have any pictures, but I can tell you, it was a YUGE blessing to see some familiar faces from good ol' 'Murica.

Ok, actually, we have one picture: Dad enjoying his first slice of real Italian pizza.

Mmmmmmm

Yeah, that's one slice

June 9-11:
9 was driving to the Dolomites, and exploring the really cool BnB we stayed in.
10 was a really long hike through the mountains that was breathtaking but also breathtaking.
11 was another drive, this time to our BnB in Venice.

The boys carpooled in the Kautz van; good times!

We stopped for lunch ont he way to the Dolomites at a neat little park, which had this really cool puke-a-lator (a.k.a merry-go-round): <link to youtube video>

We used a park bench for a table, and ate our lunch
of  meat, bread, and wine in the shade of a tree.

When we got to our BnB we dumped our stuff, and headed to the little village down the road for dinner. We stayed out so late, that by the time we got settled down for a little devotion, literally everyone (excepting the dads) nodded off during the reading.

The next day, though, there was no mercy for people trying to catch up on their Zzzzs. Bright and early the next morning, the Parental Units woke everybody up so we could get to the trailhead with plenty of time to hike around.

The view outside of a window in our BnB right before we left.

A little tiny church we saw on the way.

A break on the hike. This was at a big restaurant about a mile up the trail.

SNOWBALL FIGHT IN JUNE???!!! WOOOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

Yup, that's dangerous. But also fun. 😉

POP! These flowers were ALL OVER the trail as we hiked.

We finished the hike just in time to avoid getting rained on! Phew.

June 12: We drove from the Dolomites to Venice, and stayed overnight. the most noteable meal that day was a fairly nice restaurant we ate dinner at, and there happened to be dancing lessons there the same evening. That evening, we again tried to have a devotional in Romans and mostly succeded.

As you drive around Italy, there are TONS of really old castles just layin' 'round the mountains. I often think of castles as mysterious and rare and grandiose (some of them are in reality the size of your house), but actually, you just have to go to where they all are: Italy! (Yeah, Eliza, there's totally medieval castles in Iowa😏) I guess some part of me also expected them to be protected and made into a reservation or whatever, but that's really only the small minority.

Driving over a bridge on the way into Venice

The BnB we stayed at had a small playground and lawn chairs, even a gazebo!
However, there were TONS of mosquitoes.

For dinner we went to a locally-reccomended place, and we had to get a little dressed up. The parents took some photos by the gazebo before we left.

 

The boys' pizza dinners, and yeah, that's one whole pizza EACH. Italian food is pretty dang good.

Devo time!

The people who we rented the BnB from gave us prosecco (sparkling white wine)
and butter cookies.
Everyone tried the presecco, and it's the alcolholic drink I hate the least.

June 13: We packed everything up and drove to the outskirts of Venice. Pickpocketing and car robbery isn't infrequent, so it was a little bit of a risk leaving all our bags in the cars in an unguarded parking ramp. Thankfully, we weren't robbed. We took a ferry into the heart of Venice, and started our walk. Appropriately dubbed "urban hike", by Henry. We toured shops, restaurants, and public monuments. We also took a gondola ride!

A cute alleyway with a restaurant's sign

GELATOOOOO!!!!!
YEET!!!!!

Us all in the boat.

A super old church. We went in to go take a look, and I got some pictures.
But apparently, there are no pictures allowed, so there are no pictures on this blog for you readers.

My favorite sign beside ones that say "gelateria".

Yup, our whole group basically filled an allyway everywhere we went.

Looking over one of many bridges.

A square in Venice

Gondola ride!! Since Venice is sinking, we saw a lot of
 doorways that were partially submerged in water.

The house of Marco Polo. This was, unfortunately, the only thing our
gondolier told us while were we floating along the canals.

After our walk in Venice, we took a boat back, found our cars, and drove to the outskirts of Florence, where we stayed overnight.

June 13-15 was spent in Rome, where we did all sorts of hikes and touristy stuff. Moreover, we had a kids movie night, WITHOUT parents. (Actually, that was heckin' crazy)

An ornate gate (hey, that rhymes) on the way to Rome.

So, after we arrived at our BnB in Rome, Mr. Nick and his friend Friday visited us, and we all went out for supper at a little corner diner.

Parent's table + Ayden photobombing

Boys' table and assorted crazy

The girls' table

By the time the meal was done, everyone was full and happy and Henry and Ben had fallen asleep. (Far right and left, respectively)

The little market we stopped at for the next morning's breakfast.

June 16 was a drive all the way from Rome to Tuscany, where we stayed for basically the end of our trip.
Midway in our drive, we stopped on an island, where we had dinner, and swam at a tiny beach where the water was FREEZING. But it was cool because a little way out from the shore, there was a rock sticking out of the water, and we could swim out to it and jump off, being careful not to scrape ourselves on the sharp and pointy barnacles.

A couple of the servers at the small seafood restaraunt we had lunch at.
(Kids table in the background)

Picture-perfect view of the countryside

The beach we swam at. It was a short hike from our car down the cliff.

On the road during our trip, I have no idea what it means.

A cool typewriter we found for sale at the
cafe in the town we stayed at in Tuscany.

June 17: FATHER'S DAY! (In America) The morning was spent frantically dashing to a grocery store before it closed. Why? Well, in Italy, there is a tradition to take an afternoon rest from 10-2. The town we stayed in was uber small, and we were far away from any store close to us, so we had to make our trip snappy. We made it to the store in time to have about 5 minutes before it closed. We didn't get everything on our list. Well, we asked around, and someone told us about one single grocery store taht was open during nap time. Navigating a huge van through the tiny Italian streets, we spent about a half-hour trying to find it, and when we did, discovered that nobody knew English. Thanks to Google translate and some miracle, we did get everything we needed, and some stuff we didn't. We spent the rest of the day chilling out in the pool and, since we got the grill in the garden by our Bnb to work, we grilled sausages for lunch! Mmmmmm!!

The private pool that also came with our Bnb

Lunch!

Greta catching something or other

ICE CREAM at the cafe

Grillmaster doin' his grillmaster thing

June 18 we toured an old castle (which was still actively lived in; there was a trampoline in the courtyard) and the adults went wine tasting.

McDonalds lunch on the way to the castle.

Name of the castle we toured on this day

It's a really bad picture, but at the front door of the castle there was a bell up on the wall above the door with a rope hanging down that you could pull and ring. In this picture, Greta is lifting Colt so he can ring it.

View from off of the wall behind the castle; a garden and orchard.

 Fun fact about the castle and the family who live in it: the family members are very politically active and often make controversial decisions, so on numerous occasions, projectiles and bombs have been thrown at the castle walls where they leave noticeable dents and cracks unto this very day. Sadly, we seem to have lost the photo.

Greta posing on the wall

All the kids in front of the little chapel in the castle

Painting on the roof of the chapel

 Fun fact about the chapel: it has a tomb underneath it.

Walking to the wine cellar.

So, here's a question: is it just a coincidence that the castle the adults chose to tour had a winery close by? Probably not. Is it also just a coincidence that all the pictures that I need are missing? Probably. There are no wine tasting tour pictures.

When us kids got tired of sitting around watching the Parental Units dip adult bevarages, we went to a close-by town. Here is the small cafe where we had GELATOOOOO! Way better than any ol' wine.

Singular statue of a  giant rooster in the town.

For dinner, the older four gals made spaghetti with garlic bread. YUM!
We ate in the dining room.

June 19 started out with HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY SWEET ROLLS (courtesy of Alayna and I), CAN I GET A HIGH FIVE?! Needless to say, they were the best.

EDIT: While reminiscing through old posts, I (Eliza) found this one in the drafts. I've published it, unedited and unfinished (maybe?) for posterity. :)