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March 23, 2013

Cheers, Lovely, Smashing!

“Cheers, lovely, smashing!” Yep. We are in England and they really say it just like that. At least the elderly lady beside me said it as she was handed a hot coffee. We went to church with the Sakakinis on Mothering Sunday and had coffee and cake after the service. Mothering Sunday is the European version of Mother’s Day, but it is celebrated throughout Europe on the 4th Sunday of lent and is rooted in Christianity more than greeting card marketing. It is a day when you take a break from “fasting” and enjoy a slice of delicious Simnel Cake, a traditional confection served on Mothering Sunday. It is fruity with a marzipan layer in the middle and top. Rebekah helped decorate theirs. The rounds balls on top represent the 11 apostles. And, just like in America, flowers were handed out, mothers were honored, and florists made a small fortune. As you’ll see in the photos, Old Basing is a wonderfully quaint town – very old with a long history.
Written by in England, Mom 2 Comments
March 22, 2013

Battery Lodge

Finding lodging each place we go always proves to be an adventure. We’ve booked places in advance and had the dates all wrong. We’ve showed up cold turkey other places and found better prices than if we had booked. You just really never know. One thing is always the same, however, and that is that when we are “shopping around” for a place to stay, we’ve learned to ALWAYS pick the place with the nice people regardless of price. We do learn and on the occasion of arriving on the Isle of Bute, we went from B&B to hotel to B&B. We chose Battery Lodge on the waterfront because the lady of the house seemed so nice. We are glad we did! Lorraine and Martin were wonderful hosts, lighting the fire at night, letting us use the big, old kitchen for preparing food, and best of all, taking Rebekah out to the farm to have a ride on their horse, Finn, an honest to goodness English hunting horse. The Lady Bute (wife to the 7th Marquess of the Stuart Mansion) even hires the horse a few weeks a year to ride on her private mansion grounds. http://www.mountstuart.com Totally cool! Lorraine and Martin, if you are reading this post, we want to thank you again for such a lovely stay.
Written by in Logistics, Mom, Scotland 2 Comments
March 17, 2013

Milan and On

I’m sure you have all figured out how this blogging thing works. It’s a bit like a diet. Binge, starve, binge, starve… No consistency whatsoever. Please bear with us. If you care enough to do the math you would know that we are NOT actually in Milan anymore and haven’t been for almost 2 weeks. I guess that is how we roll!? I’ll tell you a bit about our last days in Italy anyway. Then Jeb promises to make 5 or 6 posts in a row. One every day in fact. Watch for them to start showing up and we’ll be in Prague by then. Duomo was beautiful on the outside but, to be honest, we all felt that the inside was a bit creepy. Maybe it was the deceased Popes’ corpses laying around? P1060877   The detailed work on the large church doors were magnificent. Pilgrims like to touch that sort of stuff too. P1060886   The shopping in Milan is glorious! There is a different kind of pilgrim that comes here just for that. P1060891   We walked around and gawked at it all. Who wears some of that stuff anyway? This guy caught Jeb’s eye and he was all too happy to pose for a euro. IMG_1369   Maybe looking at all the beautiful Italians and beautiful clothes convinced Jeb to go to a legit Italian barber. P1060893   P1060895   And Levi too! P1060903   We had to have pizza on our last day – one for each of us. IMG_1359 Then it was time to move on. Oh look, there’s a horizontal surface. P1060905  
Written by in Italy, Logistics, Mom 1 Comment
March 7, 2013

To the Beach!

The French Riviera is really all that it’s chalked up to be. ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!!! Turquoise waters, long promenades, fast, sexy cars, ungodly-sized yachts, windy scenic roads, wonderful chateaus tucked everywhere, flower markets, Frenchmen effortlessly climbing huge hills on road bikes, immaculately clean, sunshine, dramatic ocean views, and happy people eating gelato and crepes. And then there’s Monte Carlo. It falls into its own category. To sum it up; it has sparkles in its paved roads and all the exotic sports car dealerships sit on prime real estate. Oh, the eye candy!
Written by in France, Mom, Uncategorized 1 Comment
March 6, 2013

Viva La France

Things can change so quickly and I love it. Sitting in the lobby of a wonderful, 820 year old Hotel Duomo in snowy Siena, we decide to skip the Alps (for now) and fly to England. The cheapest and only reasonable option out of Milan (where we drop Jolyn off in 5 days) is a flight to London, so we booked the tickets. Now we are driving north from Pisa. The plan was to go to Cinque Terre (5 small coastal towns that you hike from one to the next), but the weather isn’t cooperating for hiking so we took a quick vote. It’s unanimous. Let’s just drive. Viva La France! IMG_1310
Written by in Italy, Logistics, Mom 1 Comment
March 5, 2013

Pizza for 2 hours

Better than we expected, even though it was a total tourist trap. More people were in the most twisted positions posing and taking pictures than we have ever seen anywhere. Quite entertaining and the best part – we joined in the goofy fun. Yes, Jeb and Levi even paid to climb that old leaning tower.  
Written by in Italy, Mom 0 Comments
February 26, 2013

When in Rome – Don’t

Don’t: Get lost driving around at night (It wastes a lot of time!) Trip on the black cobble-stoned streets (especially in front of cute Italian boys). Cry when you see the Sistine Chapel. Get run over by a moped or a smart car (Pedestrians are 2nd class!) Bother asking for directions. Drop your tiny gelato spoon (You might not find it.) Pass out at the Vatican (Like the little, old lady who did.) Ask to use a toilet (Makes you wonder if they want you to be here…) Punt a pigeon (Jeb and Levi!) Expect free wi-fi to be free. Stand in line at the Colluseum (Buy a Roma Pass!!) Stalk the gladiators in the grocery store (Rebekah and Jolyn!) Take pictures with Glutenous Maximus (It’s not free so it’s good we didn’t try it.) Go with your buddy to take profile pictures for dating.com (@ the Trevi Fountian). Sign the walls of the Catacombs (Don’t worry, we didn’t, but stupid people do.) Antagonize the local crow (Well, actually, you should. It’s really fun!) Expect to pop your head out of the Metro hole on the correct side of the street. Get stuck in the ancient elevator (at the apartment bldg. you’re staying at.) Get a sore neck from looking up at all the amazing ceilings.
Written by in Italy, Mom, Travel Tips 6 Comments
February 19, 2013

Venice

Born in a lagoon 1,500 years ago as a refuge from barbarians, Venice is Europe’s best preserved Middle-Ages city. It is laced together by 400 bridges and 2,000 alleys. ( There are NO cars.) In the Middle-Ages, the Venetians became Europe’s clever middlemen for East-West trade and created a trading and shipping empire. The seat of the Venetian government and home of its ruling doge, or duke, was the most powerful and wealthy half-acre in Europe for 400 years. The city, during that time, was the world’s richest! However, with the discovery of America and new trading routes, Venetian power ebbed. As it fell, her appetite for decadence grew and through the 17th and 18th centuries, Venice partied on the wealth it had accumulated through earlier times as a trading empire. All of it is evident as we visited the Doge’s Palace, saw St. Marco’s Square, wandered the canals, and floated down the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is Venice’s “Main Street”. The most lavish palaces in Venice form a sort of chorus line along the entire canal, each with its own entrance from the water. – Paraphrased from Rick Steves’ Venice is truly a beautiful city! It was really hard to pick which pictures to show you since I think we filled an entire card with them. I’ll only bother you with two pages… Photography in the Doge’s Palace were forbidden, but I must add that we did get to see the largest oil painting in the world in there!
Written by in Italy, Mom 3 Comments
February 15, 2013

Money

It is interesting how the tour books suggest that one should travel to modern countries first and ease themselves into the 3rd world. The culture shock could kill you. The Butlers are finding that the best way to do it is start in super cheap, and underdeveloped places like Thailand and then ease ourselves into the money-sucking ones. The shock has been non-fatal. For those who are interested in how we are doing since arriving in the Eurozone…  30-50 euros for food, about 50-60 euros for a hotel with free camping whenever possible, 10-20 euros for entrance fees, 20 euros for a car (when rented) equals/averages about 125 euro a day for all 4 of us. Not bad, but we have just left Greece and arrived in Milan so we’ll see how we fare as we go north. Thankfully we will get to do some more couch surfing at some point. P1060298 Travel Tip:  This is a good way to send packs onto airlines. It keeps your straps all tucked away and safe in a neat bundle. P1060300 We had to catch a shuttle bus from the airport outside of Milan to the Central Train Station where we were then able to walk to our hotel.
Written by in Greece, Logistics, Mom, Travel Tips 0 Comments
February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Not much to say except that we hope you have a great day with the people you love. We took these photos today while we wandered around – relaxing. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Written by in Greece, Mom 2 Comments
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