Tour of Italy

As Lauren said in her last post, she's "allowing" me to be her first (and last?) guest blogger. How thoughtful.

"Your honor, I'd like to submit this evidence of our vacation."

"I'll allow it."

In an effort not to repeat too much of what Lauren already said (you can thank me later for that), I'll focus on some of the out-of-the-ordinary highlights.

Started with a nice one-stop trip from San Diego to Venice. Delta makes it pretty easy -- except for a 5-hr layover in JFK, which we turned into a positive. We paid (half-price ... what, I'm still Jewish) to get into the Delta Sky Club where they have comfortable chairs, wi-fi, electrical outlets, free food, and free alcohol. So we spent the 5 hours in luxury. What's interesting is these fancy lounges apparently have private showers. So we partook of the elegant airport shower to be a little more refreshed for the 8-hour flight across the pond. Wasn't SO bad, hundreds of free movies and TV shows -- who needs Netflix?

[2 paragraphs in, and I still haven't gotten to Italy ... this is going even worse than the skeptics feared.]

We met Lauren in Venice. See her blog post. What's interesting is how easy and safe the train system is. Originally thought we'd need a car to get to some of the smaller cities, but trains go everywhere. At the end of the day, we took the train to Forli (pronounced for-LEE). It's a small town, where very little English is spoken. Fortunately, our Hotel was one of the exceptions, so we could check in, in English.

Lauren talked about Ravenna, but it's interesting enough to mention again. Located 30 mins from Forli, it's a small hidden gem of a city known for their Mosaics. Italy guidebooks rave about it, but most Americans have never heard of it, because it's not really near anything (2 hours from either Florence or Venice). The highlight is the Basilica of San Vitale, stunning mosaics throughout this church. Across the courtyard, is the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, which has even more impressive mosaic art. No one ever gets to this part of Italy, but if you do, consider a visit.    

That night, we watched her team play for the first time (other than LiveStats on the internet). Team is very competitive and currently in 2nd place. We met her coaching staff, the President of the organization, scorekeepers, etc. Most spoke no English, but made us feel welcome. Everyone was super nice. One of the scorekeepers, Mattia, is an English translator, so we were able to talk with him when we had any questions. Team won both games, and Lauren played well, even hitting a home run for us to see.

Lauren talked about our next visits: Pisa and Cinque Terre. Pisa has the tower. Took dorky pictures holding up the tower. Enough said. Cinque Terre is another of Italy's hidden gems that most Americans don't know about. Again, guidebooks rave about it. Five picturesque hillside villages, on Italy's western coast overlooking the Ligurian Sea, are separated by hiking trails. Depending on how far the villages are, some trails are easier

than others. We went on one of the "others", from Monterossa (village #5) to Vernazza (village #4). It only took 2.5 hours, but it felt like 2.5 weeks, uphill both ways. But as much as I enjoy complaining (it's my defining quality), the views of the sea and of the colorful villages were stunning -- well worth the effort. Funniest part was climbing down to Vernazza and seeing the poor saps starting their trek going the other direction to Monterossa. They were already complaining, and they had barely started. That night at dinner, in Vernazza, we sat next to an older Danish couple. Must have been 60+ years old. They made the same hike we did. Took them over 6 hours, but damn, good for them!

Last several days we spent in Rome. As some of you know, Robin and I took a Mediterranean cruise 5 years ago for our 20th anniversary. It was supposed to stop in Rome, but due to high winds, they had to skip that port. So we finally got there. As Lauren mentioned, she was able to join us the first day and see the main sights: Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Vatican City, etc. I'll just say that I didn't think it was possible to see more crowds than at the Trevi Fountain. Oh. My. God. But our next stop was the Colosseum. I was wrong. In general, I was surprised at how busy Rome is -- lots of hustle and bustle, all the time. We planned several English-speaking tours. Here are our favorites:

Vatican Tour: Really interesting and impressive. St. Peter's is the largest Catholic church in the world. To give you perspective, the letters in the band encircling the dome are 12 feet high. There are no paintings in St. Peter's Basilica. Anything that looks like a painting is done with mosaics. 

A painted ceiling in the Vatican Museum.
It is a flat surface, painted with a technique
to make it appear to be three-dimensional. 

TIP: There are many outside companies that give Vatican tours of course. But if you book early enough, you can get the best prices by going directly thru the Vatican website, and doing tours with their own guides. We chose not to spend $5 Euros to climb to the top of St. Peter's Basillica, but supposedly there are terrific views of the city. Hopefully, Lauren will get to do that with Chelsea.

Walking/Eating Tour: This was a fantastic experience walking around the Rome neighborhood of Trestevere (pronounced tres-TEH-va-ray). Tour took us along side streets where locals live, work, and eat. Tour guide told us about the neighborhood and about the great restaurants we ate at: pizza (at the best pizza place in Rome) which included a behind the scenes look at the pizza ovens, fried artichokes, wine tasting in a 1000 year old wine cellar, cookies, full 3-course pasta dinner (with more wine), and gelato for dessert. Again, most tourists never get to this part of Rome because the easy-to-use metro/subway doesn't go here. Definitely recommend doing this if you get a chance. 

Tivoli: Taking advice from friends, we took a bus tour to see Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este in Tivoli, outside of Rome. Villa d'Este featured hundreds of fountains and amazing views. 

Tuscany Tour: Maybe the best tour of the entire trip. This was a 2-hour bus trip north of Rome to the middle of the Tuscany wine country. Absolutely beautiful views of rolling hills and acres of vineyards. Stopped at several places, toured the walled mountainside city of Montepulciano with quaint streets and great views of Tuscany, an Abbey where we heard monks singing daily chants, and a winery where they served as appetizers and a complete lunch in the wine cellar while we did wine-tasting. Our 20-person group was a lot of fun. 2 girls were study-abroad students from U of Alabama -- one from Cincinnati who saw my Ohio Softball jacket and said she had lots of friends at Ohio, while the other was 19 years old ... on a wine tasting tour. Gotta love Italy, where the drinking age is around 7.

 

 

On the final Saturday, Lauren's team traveled south of Rome, near Naples, to a city called Caserta. We met them there, but unfortunately, it was pouring rain in Caserta which canceled the games. Instead, we got to spend the last night with Lauren and the team at dinner. Not a bad Plan B.

Other observations and tidbits:

• Robin wore her step tracker during our trip. During our 10 days, we walked an average of 9 miles per day.
• Wine in Italy is excellent and very inexpensive. For €6 (about $8), you can get a half liter of house wine which pours about 4 glasses and is better than in the States. 
• When you order fish, it is often served whole. Fortunately, you can ask your server to fillet it for you. At one restaurant, the fish was ridiculously large and could have fed a small family. 
  

• Because I'm obsessed with breakfast, we chose hotels that provided it with our room. In Rome, the spread was particularly impressive. We enjoyed it all three days.

• If you want to see more pictures, click here to see the 700+ photographs from our trip.

All in all, we had SUCH a great time seeing Lauren, seeing the sights off the beaten path, and watching softball. Now, I'll allow Lauren to take back control of her blog.

A Week in Italy with Mom & Dad

My parents arrived in Italy a week from today and even with my softball schedule, I was able to do a lot of traveling with them! This post is going to be a brief break down of the days we spent in different Italian cities together. Because they are still traveling around Italy without me, (in Rome right now to be exact), I am allowing them to write a guest blog post about their entire trip when they return! Scotty G will be the writer so be prepared for a long post filled with lots of details. Robs will be in charge of formatting and adding in pictures so it will hopefully look more like a lengthy picture book instead of a novel.

Day 1- Venice

Venice is definitely my favorite city I have been to on my trip so far. I love that everything is surrounded by water, boats are basically the only form of transportation, and the buildings are so bright and pretty. My parents landed at 11 am and they were waiting for me when I got off my train around noon. We ate at a nice place for lunch right on the water near the train station and ordered the typical (and delicious) caprese salad, pizza, and seafood pasta. We rode a vaporetto (like a hop-on-hop-off water taxi) that took us to different islands and places in Venice. We got to go through some of the canals and see all of the pretty buildings on the water and the boats all around us. We got off at Murano which is an island known for their glass blowing and got to see an actual glass blowing demonstration as well as looking in all of the little shops filled with glass blowing items! (Sorry for saying glass blowing so many times in that last sentence... and sorry for saying it again.) We went back on the vaporetto and made it to St. Mark's Square and saw the large and impressive buildings with beautiful architecture and designs. After a long day of travel for them, we went to the train station to headed back to Forli.

Day 2- Ravenna & Softball

Ravenna is a city near Forli that is known for their mosaics. On Saturday morning we hopped on a train and walked around the beautiful city of Ravenna for a couple of hours. We went inside a church with mosaics everywhere (even the floor!) and there were lots of little shops that had cute mosaic stuff too. I definitely have found a new appreciation for mosaics... as well as this lesser-known city of Ravenna! 

That night we won both of our home games against Parma and my parents were there to watch me hit a homerun!

Day 3 & Day 4- Pisa & Cinque Terre

We started off this Sunday by heading to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Because it was Mother's Day, I felt it was appropriate to get a picture of my mom and me with the Leaning Tower. Unfortunately, this meant that my dad was the photographer by default. This wouldn't have been that big of an issue if it wasn't important to take the cliche picture of pushing the leaning tower. That first picture took at least 15 minutes to take as well as at least 15 different yoga poses my dad did as he tried to get the perfect angle. (I hope he doesn't get too upset when he sees the imperfections in this picture.)

Cinque Terre translates to Five Villages and is known for their colorful buildings on the water and their hikes around the villages. When we got there from Pisa and checked into our hotel, I immediately fell in love. The first picture shows our view from the hotel balcony... all of the colorful houses on the hill are so pretty! We took a train to one of the villages and walked around for a little until taking a train to the next village where we had dinner on the hill with a view of the water and houses. The next day we went to a third village and did a 2 1/2 hour hike to the next village! (It was very difficult and I am sure my dad will explain about their accomplishments of the hike when he writes his post.) It was a really pretty hike with great views and worth all of the hills and steps we walked up. We ended up making it to the fifth village that day as well. We were there less than 2 days and were able to see and enjoy all 5 villages. (My mom was the only one who could actually remember the which village was which... even though she couldn't pronounce any of them.)

Day 5- Softball in Forli

Because my games against Collecchio got rained out a few weeks before, it got rescheduled to this Tuesday. After my parents were able to rearrange their plans, they were happy they got to see another set of games. They weren't so happy on Tuesday though because it was raining. Our make up game almost got rained out! Luckily it stopped raining just in time to play our games. Both were both close games and we won the first and lost the second.

Day 6- Rome

Trevi Fountain

Colosseum

Palatine Hill

Because we had games on Tuesday, our coach gave us Wednesday off so I got to go on an unexpected trip to Rome! They had already planned on going to Rome for several days and it was nice to join them on their first day. We started off by going on a hop-on-hop-off tour bus where we sat on the upper level on a beautiful day and got to see all the major sites from the bus. We made it to Trevi Fountain and tossed a coin into the fountain and then went inside the Colosseum. From there we went over to Palatine Hill and saw some more ruins. They already had plans to go on a food and wine tasting tour and it was too late to add me in, so I took a train back to Forli that evening. I know that everybody is going to tell me that spending one day in Rome is not enough time, but I did get a little taste of it. The ruins were very impressive but I think I would have appreciated it more if I learned more about the history behind it all. Luckily I am here all summer and maybe I will try and get in touch with my history side and visit Rome again.

I haven't been with my parents since Wednesday so they have had some extra days of traveling without me to other cool places here. They have been texting me in the evenings telling me about the great days they have had... especially the food! They are coming to my games in Caserta (near Naples) on Saturday night and leave to return home to San Diego on Sunday morning. 

Be on the look out for a more detailed blog post from my parents about their entire trip sometime next week!

My parents being here definitely had an impact on this gelato tracker... +6

GELATO TRACKER

18

Visitors

It is officially May which means that it is the month that people start to come and visit me!

Here are the places that I have made plans to visit:

• Venice, Italy
• Rome, Italy
• Munich, Germany
• Barcelona, Spain
• London, England
• Paris, France

Here are the people who have planned to visit me:

Mom & Dad

My first visitors are my parents! They will be in Italy from May 9-18. They land in Venice a week from today! I got permission from my coach to take practice off on Friday and meet them in Venice and spend the day with them! I have a double header of home games on Saturday evening but in the morning I am going to show them around Forli and maybe catch a train to go to a nearby beach town. On Sunday morning we are on our way to Cinque Terre! Cinque Terre is made up of 5 "beachy" villages. (5 in Italian is cinque.) We will stop by Pisa on our way and then we will spend Sunday and Monday around the villages of Cinque Terre. On Tuesday morning we are taking a train that gets us to Rome at noon. I will spend the day and night in Rome and on Wednesday I am taking a train back to Forli to be back in time for afternoon practice. My parents will be in Rome until Saturday when they head down to Caserta (near Naples) where I have games that evening. If you would like the in-depth and detailed itinerary... please contact either of my parents. They would LOVE to talk about it.

**My games tomorrow are cancelled due to rain. The make-up games are not decided yet, but we might play them on that Tuesday I was planning on spending in Rome with my parents. Once we get a definite answer on the game schedule, my parents and I will talk and change plans if necessary. It is possible that I come home on Monday night from Cinque Terre and skip out on Rome with them. There are other options as well but we will see what happens...

Chelsea

Chelsea and I started playing softball together when we were 8 and our families have been friends ever since. She went to Poway High and then played softball at University of Nevada. She graduated last year and has been working at a psychiatric type facility for a while. She has been very interested in traveling and seeing the world and she booked her flight to come to Italy at the beginning of June! But stopping in Italy to see me is only part of her trip. She leaves May 12 to spend a few weeks in India before coming to Italy. She lands in Bologna (the closest airport to Forli) on the Tuesday evening of June 3. She is going to stay for about a week with me in my apartment and hopefully my practice schedule will allow for some day trips! Maybe we can go somewhere fun on her birthday, June 4. I have my last set of home games that following Saturday which she will go to and then we will definitely find a place to go on that Sunday (because we always have Sundays off) and maybe even Monday depending on when she leaves and my softball schedule. I won't be able to visit the Vatican with my parents if I go to Rome with them, so Chelsea and I have been talking about possibly going there but right now our plans are up in the air. Once she leaves Italy, she is flying to England to visit another friend who is studying there.

Ken

My boyfriend, Ken, will be flying out to spend three weeks with me right after Chelsea leaves! He will be here from June 10 to July 2. He gets in on a Tuesday morning and we have lots of fun things planned. For the first few days (because of my practice schedule) we will probably just be spending time together around Forli which we are both happy with because we will finally be together after  3 months of me being gone. We might try and go to a beach nearby or take a day trip to Florence or Venice, or just take walks around the city of Forli and enjoy the nice parks there are here. I have my last games of regular season on that Saturday. Unfortunately, they aren't home games so he will be traveling about 2 hours to come watch me play softball for the first time! After my games, instead of going back home on the bus with the team, we are staying the night in a hotel nearby. The next day (my birthday!!!) we are taking a scenic train from Verona, Italy to Munich, Germany! This is about 5 hours and we get to go through and see the Swiss Alps. We will have that evening and most of the following day to see Munich. That Monday evening, we have a short flight that takes us to Barcelona, Spain! We have all of Tuesday to enjoy Barcelona but then on Wednesday morning we are flying back to Italy so I can be back in time for practice on Wednesday. Playoff games for the division start on Saturday so once I get more information about time and location for that, we can make more plans on any other day trips we want to do. On Sunday we plan to spend the day and night in Rome and spend more time exploring on Monday as well. Even though we won't be spending a lot of time in specific cities... we are seeing a lot of different places together!

Paige

Paige and I played softball at Ohio University together. She is two years older than me so we only got to play two years together but we have remained friends ever since. She's from New Jersey, graduated with a science major from OU (biology? chemistry? physics?), and then went to grad school to study science education at Boston College (which you remember if you were there when she got the news). Now she teaches at a boarding school in Boston. When she gets out of school at the beginning of June she is taking a two week trip through Italy and even though she has a lot of fun plans and a lot of places to see, she has made some time for me! She is going to come to my last games of regular season... the same away games that Ken will be at! I won't be able to spend that much time with her but it will be fun to see her at my games! And maybe if I have any available days, Ken and I can meet up with her at whatever city she is at and see her a little bit more.

Maddi

Maddi and I have been close friends since my senior year of high school (her sophomore year) when we played varsity volleyball at Westview together. She is finishing up her junior year at UC Davis right now studying some type of engineering (civil?). During July she is studying abroad in Ireland! She gets done at the end of July which happens to be great timing for me. There is a break in my softball schedule around that time because there is a tournament that I can't play in because it is for Italians only. I talked to my manager and coach and they have allowed me to make plans to travel with Maddi from July 26 to August 1. We are meeting in London on Saturday, July 26 and then on Tuesday, July 29, we are taking a train to Paris and spending the next few days there until we go our separate ways on Friday, August 1. We are going to have our first hostel experience together! We looked online and got some recommendations from people and booked some exciting looking hostels we will hopefully enjoy.

Karen

My little sister will HOPEFULLY be coming to visit in August. She is finishing up her junior year at Boise State, studying biology. She is taking classes this summer but has a break between summer school and the fall semester the week of August 16. Although I don't think I have any softball games scheduled in August, the biggest tournament of the season is at the beginning of September so I will probably have practices that week Karen is available. If I get more information about my schedule and days I will have off, then maybe Karen can book her flight to Europe. She may want to spend a week in Italy, but we could also meet in another country and spend time exploring cities that I haven't seen yet. Again, this is not for sure, but I really hope it works out!






I have already talked to some people who know more about some of the cities I am traveling to but if you have any more information then please let me know! Or if there is a city in Europe that you think I have to see while I am here for the summer I would love to hear about it.  I am up for any suggestions or advice.

GELATO TRACKER

12