Dublin (Ireland Part 2)

When we got back to Dublin we met up with Jenny & Chris at the hotel.  We'd read about a place nearby that served some of it's own beers, and were intrigued.  When we got there we had dinner and their beers were pretty good.  They had a home made Pale Ale that was delicious.  Next up was the famous Church bar.  It's named that because it actually used to be a church.  And not just any church...it was where Arthur Guinness was married in 1761.  Now it's been converted into a giant bar.  It was over priced, but worth a drink or two to say we'd been there.  It's funny how we've gotten used to cheap beer (price, not quality) in Germany.  The average price for a half liter glass is 2-3 Euros in Germany.  In Ireland, the average price was double that at 5-6 Euros.

We walked around for a little bit more after that, but since it'd been a long day for all of us, we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel.  It was a decent sized buffet, and cheap compared to some prices.  Some hotels we've stayed at charge anywhere from 20-30 Euros for the breakfast buffet.  This one was only 8 Euros, and was more then filling.  After breakfast we headed down to the City Hall area to start the tour.  The lady who took us through was VERY knowledgable.  We started off at the Dublin Castle, which looked more like a palace then a castle.  The original Dublin Castle was built around the 1100's, but due to war & fires, was mostly demolished and replaced with what's today known as the castle.  Until the Irish independence in 1922 it was used by the British for their local government.  There is one tower that still remains from the original Castle.  It's interesting, but definitely looks out of place.  The back part of the castle is a pretty green lawn now, but used to be a swamp.  It's waters were so murky & black that the local Vikings called it "Dubhlinn", meaning black pool.  Over the years the spelling was changed a bit, until it became what we know today as Dublin.  Through out the tour we stopped at Christchurch Cathedral, nicknamed the Whiskey Church because Jameson Distillery helped fund the majority of the renovations over the years.  Our tour guide told us the story of the Cat & the Rat, whose mummified bodies are on display in the crypt of the church.  One day the organ player was testing the organ and he noticed that when he hit a particular key, the organ didn't play any chime.  They took it apart, and found a mummified cat inside.  The organ was in the lower part of the church, where the air is very dry, which is why it mummified.  They put the organ back to together, but that key still wouldn't play any music.  They took it apart again, and this time further up the pipe found the mummified remains of a rat...presumably the one the cat had chased up there.  For some reason, instead of burying or disposing of the animals, the priest at the time decided to preserve and display the animals.

From there we headed to Trinity College, a university that has been there for hundreds of years.  It was a beautiful campus.  The tour ended in the local gardens that used to be private, but are now opened to the public.  It's also where the Irish resistance in 1922 during the uprising holed up.  They stayed there for awhile until British snipers started picking them off from the surrounding buildings.

After the tour we were hungry, so we headed over to the Jameson Distillery for lunch.  The food wasn't bad, but was over priced.  The dessert Shanna & I shared was good though...we even had an Irish Coffee to go with it.  After lunch I walked down to the bar area and tried a 15 year old bottle of Jamesons..it was AMAZING.  The neat part was the bar area had a glass floor that was situated over the remains of the original distillery.

At this point we'd been walking around all day and we were beat.  We weren't far from our hotel, and didn't have any plans for a few hours, so we went back & took a nap.

That evening we headed to the Workman's Bar in the Temple Bar district area.  The tour we had taken earlier in the day sponsored a pub crawl through out pubs in the area.  The first bar started you off with a complimentary pint of Guinness.  We hit five pubs between 7:30pm and midnight, and had a great time talking with our pub guide.  She was about 5 foot tall, had a thick Irish accent, and just talked & talked all night.  But it was a lot of fun...it's great spending time with friends, but one part of travelling we both love is talking with the people who live where ever we are visiting.  At the end of the pub crawl we cabbed it back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next morning, after breakfast, we had a few things planned.  That morning we wanted to see a few things in town, then later that afternoon we were heading to the nearby coastal village of Howth.  We first walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was a pretty cathedral from the outside, but really neat from the inside. One thing I learned was that Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, is buried there.  There was also all kinds of plaques & memorials in there.  One plaque I thought was really interesting, it was dedicated to a guy who was killed in action in Afghanistan.  I assumed it was a recent plaque until I noticed the date...1842.  Remember how Christchurch Cathedral was nicknamed the Whiskey Church?  Well St. Patrick's is nicknamed the Beer Church because the Guinness Brewery put a large amount of money into restoring it.

From there we headed to the Christchurch Cathedral that we had stopped at the day before on the tour.  This time we were able to walk in, as well as go down into the crypt area and see the Cat & the Rat mentioned earlier.  They also had some of the set costumes from the show The Tudors.  Apparently they filmed at the church all the time.

Now it was time to head to Howth.  We hopped a bus to the train station, then took a quick train ride there. It's too bad the weather was overcast, because it was pretty enough as it was, but on a clear day it would have been amazing.  We walked around the dock area for a bit, then headed over to a row of seafood restaurants for lunch.  They are all lined up right where the fishing boats dock, so they would unload their catches that day and they go right into the restaurant.  The place we ate at served them "tapas" style, so we ordered a bunch of plates and just shared them.  The food was outstanding.

We walked from there, along the dock, to the tourist information center.  Inside the center a local artist had a small shop set up.  Shanna fell in love with a watercolor print of the local light house, and it was reasonably priced, so we picked it up.  The artist was really nice, and gave us his contact info.  He asked us to send him a picture once Shanna had it framed and hung in our house.  While walking to the local bus stop, we saw a dog that I had to get a picture of...he was the same breed as Murphy, and was even sitting with his legs crossed, the same way Murphy does.

The bus wasn't going to be there for another 45 minutes, so we took a cab up to the summit area.  The view from up there was amazing.  You could see way out into the ocean, as well as the local lighthouse.

We walked around the summit area for awhile, then were lucky enough to catch a bus that went all the way to Dublin.  It was neat riding on the upper level of the bus and seeing the country side.  It was also strange riding on the left side of the road.  That would take a long time to get used to.

When we got back to Dublin, we walked around shopping for awhile, then headed back to the hotel and ate dinner there.

The next morning we got up early, headed to the airport, and flew home.  One neat thing I saw while in the air was some mountains.  We were way above the cloud layer, but these mountains were so tall the peaks broke through the cloud layer!  I took a picture of it and it's on the pictures page.

So that was it...over all we had a great time, and now more then ever I want to go visit Scotland.  The people in Ireland were so friendly, and the country side is stunning.

The blog will most likely be quiet for awhile...our next planned trip isn't until the end of May when we go to Paris & Normandy for Memorial Day Weekend.  Then in June Shanna's Mom is bring her niece & nephew out for a few weeks, then in July we fly back home for a week!  So it'll be quiet until May, but then there'll be lots of posts between then & mid July.

To see pictures, click here or any picture above.

Belfast (Ireland Part 1)

A few months ago our friends Jenny & Chris mentioned doing Ireland in March.  They were looking at spending a Sunday - Wednesday there, but we decided to go a few days before them, then meet up when they arrived.

We got a good deal on direct flights, so it was nice not have to change over anywhere.  When we landed in Dublin, we couldn't help but notice the same thing immediately...English was everywhere!  You get used to not being able to read every sign, or having to pick out words you know to get the over all meaning.  But for the next six days, we wouldn't have to worry about speaking or reading anything but English.  It was a quick trip through Passport control, then we got our baggage and hopped a cab to the hotel.  On the drive there I noticed the cabbie was driving the speed limit, and sitting in the left lane.  I thought that was a jerk move, but then I thought about it...I knew they drove on the left side of the road, then it occurred to me that maybe that meant their left lane was the cruising lane and they passed on the right side.  Sure enough, I saw cars pass him on the right, then get right back in the left lane.  That would be hard to get used to if we lived there.

We got to the hotel, checked in, then hit the town.  Both of us were tired, so we didn't stay out too late, but we did head to a pub for dinner and a few drinks.  The first thing we noticed when we walked into the pub was how friendly everyone was.  The bartender said hello, and talked with us for a few minutes before seating us, and all through out the evening, everyone who worked there was really nice.  I had a delicious dinner of chicken, wrapped in bacon and stuffed with herbs.

After we were done there, we headed back to the hotel and called it an early night.  It was nice being able to flip through the TV channels and have every one of them be in English.

The next morning came quickly because we had to be at the train station by 7:30 to meet up with our tour. We got there on time, got our tickets from our tour guide, then hopped on the train to Belfast.  Our tour guide was really nice, and on the 2 hour train ride would move from group to group talking with people.  The country side was BEAUTIFUL.  It had rained the night before and was sunny now, so the whole country side looked like someone had hosed it all down and cleaned it.  It was bright, shiny, and most of all, GREEN.

Before we knew it we had arrived in Belfast.  The interesting thing about Belfast, which I didn't know prior to our trip, was that it's the capital of Northern Ireland, which is a different country from the Republic of Ireland.  The southern part of the country is called the Republic of Ireland, and is it's own independent country.  It's part of the EU and uses the Euro for currency, but has it's own government.  Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and uses the Pound for currency.  The hotel we were staying at was right outside the train station, so we were able to quickly check in & drop our bags off, then hop on the tour bus that was going to take us all around the northern part of the country that day.  On the way to our first stop, we saw a full rainbow!  I thought that was neat, seeing a rainbow in Ireland.  Our first stop was Carrickfergus Castle.  Because we had a lot of places to visit, we didn't actually go in the castle, we just stopped for about 10 minutes outside the castle to stretch our legs and take pictures.

After that it was back on the bus.  The drive to the rope bridge was going to take approximately 2 hours, so we stopped at a rest stop along the way in a little village.  I only mention this because we took some pictures there, including one of a plaque I thought was interesting talking about Paddy, a carrier pigeon used shortly after D-Day to send information to troops in France.  It flew there and back in just under 5 hours, which was a record time.

When we got to the rope bridge area, you couldn't help but be in awe of the cliff sides and small islands.  It was a 1 kilometer walk from the parking lot to the rope bridge, but it took us awhile to walk it because we kept stopping to take pictures.  The rope bridge was HIGH up...several hundred meters above a rocky area with the ocean flowing beneath us.  You'll see it in the pictures, it would have been a long way down.  It didn't help that it was windy and the bridge was swinging.

There wasn't much on the other side of the rope bridge, just an area on the rock outcropping to take pictures and look around.  We then crossed back over the bridge and headed back to the bus.

The next stop was lunch at the Bushmill's Distillery.  It's the oldest licensed distillery in Ireland, with it's license being issued in 1608.  They had been distilling on that site since the 1100's, but in the 1600's they were required to get a license to continue.  The food there was pretty good, I had a cottage pie, which was basically hamburger meat and vegetables with a baked mashed potato like topping.  We also might have picked up a few bottles of the whiskey from the gift shop. :)

Before the last stop, the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road so we could get out & take pictures.  From there we could see an amazing sight...castle ruins built on top of the cliffs looking out over the water.  The pictures of it are some of my favorites that we took during the trip.

The next stop was the last one, and the main reason for the trip...the Giant's Causeway.  It's a natural rock formation that's unique because of it's shape...hexagons.  It was due to volcanic eruptions, but in typical Irish fashion, they have a different reason.  They like to say that a giant named Finn McCool used to live there (hence the name), and it had a problem with the giant who lived across the Irish Sea, in Scotland.  They would throw rocks at each other, and that's how part of it formed.  They also say some of the strange formations of rocks in the area were used by the Finn.  They have the Giants Chair, the Giants Chimney, the Giant's musical Organ, etc...  You'll see some of them in the pictures.  We got there before sunset, but the sun was lower in the sky and it was beautiful.

After we'd walked around there for a bit we got back on the bus and headed back to Belfast.  Once we got back there, the rest of the tour got back on the train and headed back to Dublin, but Shanna & I had arranged to have our return tickets dated for the following day since we were staying the night in Belfast.  We went back to the hotel and dropped our stuff off, then walked around town.  The first pub we walked into was neat, it had a bunch of guys dressed up in kilts and other guys dressed in green watching the Ireland Vs. Scotland Rugby match.  Neither Shanna nor I had ever watched a game before and knew nothing about it.  This was another example of Irish hospitality...the bartender, in between serving drinks, sat and explained the rules to us while we watched.  Once we had a rough idea of what was going on, it was actually a lot of fun to watch.  Ireland won the match.  We wondered around town after that, and found a good pub to eat dinner at.  After dinner we stopped back in the first bar for a few more drinks, then called it a night.

The next morning we got up and hit the town.  It was around 9am, and we were scheduled to meet our tour guide at noon.  We found a great place to eat that had a traditional Irish breakfast, consisting of eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, toast, and these things that had the consistency of pancakes, but were not served with syrup.  I'm not sure what they were, but they weren't bad.  After breakfast we came across a few neat landmarks.  First was the Europa Hotel, which is famous because it was the most bombed hotel by the IRA during the 70's and 80's.  Across the street from it was the Crown Bar.  It had a giant crown on the ground at the entrance, and we were told that if you were Catholic you stepped on the crown as you walked in, and if you were Protestant you stepped over the crown.  We also passed by the Grand Opera House, which was a beautiful building.

The nice thing about Belfast was, in contrast to Dublin, it was quiet.  We walked around that morning and barely saw anyone.  At one point while we were reading a tourist sign, a guy walked up and asked if we wanted to sign up for a tour.  We told him thanks, but we already had a tour lined up.  He said ok, then asked if there was anything he could help us with or any questions we might have.  We talked with him for a few minutes, then he wished us a good day, and headed off.  It was that kind of friendliness from people that was unexpected, but we saw it our entire trip.

Eventually noon rolled around and we met our tour guide in front of City Hall.  The guy I had set the tour up through had told me ahead of time that he couldn't do it on Sunday due to a prior committment, but his friend was a professor at Queen's University in Belfast.  He was really nice, but had a THICK Irish accent. Most people we talked with were easy to understand, but I had to listen hard to this guy to understand everything he said.  The tour billed itself as "Hidden Belfast", and he took us through all sorts of back alleys and areas where you never would have known had historical value.  He showed us where the old Linen factory used to be, where members of the IRA would gather in secret, and other historical places.  We ended the tour at the oldest pub in Belfast.  From there we walked with the tour guide to St. George's Market, which was near our hotel.  It's a large indoor market where vendors from all over the city come to sell their goods.  They also had food, so we ate lunch there.  There's a video I posted in the pictures that is from the market.  They were playing Irish music as we walked through.  Finally it was time to head to the train station and hop the train back to Dublin.

Since between the two cities there's a LOT to write about, I'm breaking the post up into two, one for Belfast and one for Dublin.

To see the pictures, click here or any picture above.

To head on to the Dublin post, click here.

Karlovy Vary

I had to work Valentine's Day night, but had a three day weekend right before it, so Shanna & I decided to take a get away trip just for the weekend.  The new job is a 24x7 operation due to the nature of it, and when you first start, they like you to work all the shifts so you know everyone and what the job is like at all times of the day.  That means for January & February I've been working nights.  It's not too bad, it's quiet and I love the group of people who work at night, but I'm looking forward to shifting back to days in April.  So Friday morning I drove home, we loaded the dogs & luggage up, and hit the road.  First stop was to drop the dogs off, then I put my head back & slept in the car while Shanna drove to Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.  Shanna had wanted to go since she heard of the town from friends and saw the movie, The Last Holiday, which takes place in the town and the hotel we stayed in, the Grandhotel Pupp.

Five hours later we pulled up at the hotel.  If you've read it in the news, the stories about the deep freeze going through Eastern Europe is no joke...it was COLD.  Thankfully they had parking right in front of the hotel, so we headed inside and checked in.  The first thing we noticed was the size of the room.  It was HUGE.  And the bathroom had heated towel racks and a heated floor.  After we unpacked & got settled in, we decided to take a drive into the center of the city.  On a nice day, we could have easily walked to city center, but like I said earlier, it was freezing out.  So we drove, parked, and walked  around for a bit.  It was early evening at this point, and since it's not high tourist season, most places were closed or were closing up.  We managed to pick up a bottle of Czech wine and got some information for things to do on Saturday.  I wish I could say we stayed & did more, but there just wasn't much to do, so we headed back to the hotel.

We did walk around that evening near our hotel.  While we weren't in city center, we were in the city, in an area known for ritzy shopping & spas.  I don't think I've ever seen so many jewelry and clothing shops in such  tight spaces.

One neat area we passed was where some thermal mineral springs were.  They had buildings built around them, which were closed for the night, but it was neat seeing the outdoor pipes that carried the water from the springs into the buildings.  The spring water had various temps, with the hottest being 72 degrees Celsius (161 degrees F), so the pipes were also hot.  In that frigid air, they gave off a TON of steam.  Shanna got this picture that I thought was neat of one of the churches through the steam.

After we'd walked around for a bit, we stumbled upon a little hole in the wall restaurant that looked cozy inside, so we stopped to eat.  I had a DELICIOUS plate with deer medallions in a brown cream sauce, and I'll be honest...I can't remember what Shanna had.  But she liked it!  They brought out some delicious bread, and we washed it down with some Czech beer.  Great food at reasonable prices.  Our last stop of the night was at the front desk to schedule massages at the hotel the next morning.

When we got up, we headed down to the breakfast buffet.  They had some great food, including a pancake making station!  After breakfast we headed to the massage area.  It was run by a Russian couple, and they didn't mess around with the massages.  There were times I thought I was going to have permanent bruising.  But they did a great job, and when it was done, my whole body felt relaxed.  Speaking of Russians, that's one thing we noticed...we heard a LOT of people speaking Russian.  The strangest sight was a guy speaking to his kids in Russian and wearing a Washington Capitals jacket.  But I digress.  After the massages, we wanted to walk around town.  Here's where things get a little embarrassing.  Remember how cold I said it was?  Well, I don't own thermal underwear because I never need it.  This weekend I needed it, and Shanna had brought along an extra pair of tights.  I don't know how I squeezed into them, but I somehow managed and WOW...they kept me warm under my jeans.

We walked around town a bit more and noticed how many ducks there were in the canals that ran through the town.  The canals were almost entirely frozen over except for a few sections, and those sections that were still water had ducks crowded in them.  I don't know how they stood the cold temps.  Our first stop was the train up the mountain behind the hotel.  At the top was Diana Tower, built in 1914.  From the top of the tower, you had a spectacular view of not only Karlovy Vary, but the huge forest behind it and the mountains in the distance.  Had the wind not been whipping along the top, I could have stayed up there for awhile admiring the scenery.

When we finished walking around up there, we took the train back down to the bottom and headed into the hotel cafe to warm up with some hot chocolate.  After we had sufficiently warmed up, we decided it was time to hit the Hot Springs.  They sell special mugs all through out town that are made so the handle doubles as a straw.  We each picked out our mugs at a store, then headed to the springs.  The water is free, you just need something to put it in to drink.  They have three different stations, with the temperature of the water ranging from 30 Degrees Celsius (86 degrees F) to as hot as 72 Degrees Celsius (161 Degrees F).  The water was very...mineraly.   At the low temp you could really taste it, and it was pretty bad.  But at the high temperature you couldn't, and it wasn't bad.  Shanna didn't like it, but I didn't mind.

Apparently in the first picture she took I was closing my eyes...so I made sure I wasn't in this picture. :)  After we spent some time wandering around this part of town, we had two more places we wanted to go visit that would require driving.  First up was a trip to the glass museum right outside of town.  It's not just any glass place...they make glass and sell it to big brand names like Waterford, who then slap their name on it, mark it up, and sell it to you.  Unfortunately only the shop was open by the time we got there, the tour & museum were not.  We walked around the shop, hoping to find some high quality glass cups, bowls, etc.. for dirt cheap, but man...they were expensive.  So that didn't last long.  We headed from there to the Becherovka Distillery museum.  Becherovka is a digestif served after dinner that is supposed to aid in digestion.  We cut it close with their closing time, but managed to catch the last tour.  The only problem?  It was only in German.  We actually enjoyed it because they gave us a written English guide, so we could try to pick up as much of the German as we could, then see what we got right or wrong when we read the written material.  There was another older German couple taking the tour and we were able to understand what they were saying and said a few things back.  I was even able to understand & answer the guide when she asked what country we were visiting from.  At the end of the tour we were given samples of all their products.  They are pretty good...Becherovka is made from herbs, and you can really taste them when you try it.  One of the funnier things we saw in their shop after the tour was an Advent Calendar, but instead of candy for each day, it had shots in it.  So 25 shots for 25 days of Advent!  It was a bit pricey at 1,490CZ ($75), but I guess when you consider it's 25 shots, that's not too bad.  No, we did not buy it. :)

We were in town at this point, so we headed to an Italian restaurant that a co-worker of mine had raved about.  He'd lived in Italy for 8 years, so when he said it was great Italian food, that was all the endorsement I needed.  Plus he said it was pretty cheap.  He wasn't kidding!  We each ordered a dish, had a few beers and shared a bottle of wine, all for about $40.  The food was delicious.  Shanna ordered a spinach & meat dish, while I ordered Gnocchi with spinach, chicken, and bacon.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and ended the night in the lounge underneath the hotel.  They had a live band playing cover songs, so it was fun sitting down there & listening to the music.  One thing of note on the drink menu was a shot of 100 year old Cognac.  I was very tempted, but just couldn't justify $250 for a shot...but I won't lie, I thought about it.

The next day we checked out, hit the road, and headed home.  It was a great weekend, and a nice quick getaway.

We have a few weeks of downtime, then in early March we're flying to Ireland to visit Belfast & Dublin, so I'll be sure to have a post & pics up shortly after we get back!

To see the pictures, click any picture above or click here.

Istanbul Part 2

We arrived at the hotel right as our friends were arriving.  Regine has been friends with Shanna since they both started in the same intern program in Texarkana back in 2003 (I think that was the year, but don't quote me).  Several years before we got here she got a job in Germany, and now lives and works in Wiesbaden.  Her boyfriend Marcello came with, as well as two friends of theirs, Tre & Xolani.  We'd never met Tre & Xolani before, but they were nice, and we clicked pretty fast.

After they got checked in and settled into their room, we hit the next palace on our list to see, Topkapi Palace.  This was a deceiving Palace from the outside, it didn't look nearly as big as it actually was once you were inside.  Unlike the other palace, though, the parts you could tour were primarily outdoors in the courtyard area.  The indoor areas were rooms you'd walk in, then walk right back outside.

The various rooms had all kinds of artifacts that the Sultan owned.  Unfortunately, like the other palace, no pictures were allowed inside.  One of the first rooms we went into was the weapons room.  It had all the types of weapons both practically used and for ceremony.   One amazing sword they had from the Byzantine era was a broad sword that, from handle to tip, was taller then me.  That had to be just for display...the widest part of the blade was about the width my hands put side to side.  There's no way it could be used in combat.  The jewel encrusted daggers were neat too.  They also had a ceremonial chain mail armor encrusted with jewels all over it that was neat.  The neatest thing we saw, though, was in the jewel collection room.  They had an 86 carat diamond surrounded entirely by 49 carat diamonds.  It was first found in a garbage dump, and sold to a street vendor for 3 spoons.  When it was eventually figured out what it was, it was given to the Sultan.  This diamond was HUGE.  We walked around the rest of the palace, took some pictures, then headed out.

We showed everyone around the Grand Bazaar, did some more shopping, then went to find a Hookah Lounge.  No one was really hungry at this point, but we were tired of walking and they'd been up early for their flight, so we figured relaxing with some tea & Hookah sounded like the perfect thing to do.  In our quest for dinner Wednesday night, Shanna & I had stumbled upon a Hookah lounge that looked nice, so we took them there.  These are sometimes the best parts of a trip with friends...sitting around in a new city, in a new environment, relaxing.  One neat thing they had were these huge metal pipes on the ceiling that ran all around the place.  It was obvious they were for heating the rooms, but we didn't realize until we left just how neat that process was.  Outside was a guy stoking coals .  All the metal pipes ran from inside to right above the coals, so that heat we were feeling was coming from this fire outside.

After awhile we were ready for dinner.  Near our hotel was a string of restaurants, so we headed back there.  A lot of places had guys standing out front trying to convince you to eat at their place.  We stopped at one to look at the menu outside, and when Regine appeared like she might not want to go there, the guy offered us 10 percent off our bill.   We were probably going to eat there anyway, but we weren't going to complain about 10 percent off.  The food there was DELICIOUS.  They brought out this puffy bread that looked huge, but when you cut into it, it deflated.  But it was still fantastic.  Shanna got a fish that I think was a sea bass.  I got Turkish pizza.  When we got back to the hotel that night we asked Habib to call Esra & arrange to meet us the next day for a tour of other places in the city.

At 8:30 the next morning, we got our start.  Unfortunately, despite it being a beautiful day on Friday, it was cold & wet on Saturday.  Our first place to visit were the Basilica Cisterns.  They were used as a giant water filtration system for the palaces, but today the water level has been cut off from the aquaduct that used to feed it and brought down to a tiny level.   They have fish in the water now that keep it clean.  As you walk down into the Cisterns you can't help but be overwhelmed by the huge columns and the sheer size of the place.

Esra gave us the history of the place, and took us to the back where several columns were supported by a giant stone head of Medusa.  It's unknown where these came from.

From there we headed down to the docks.  The water was choppy, but not so bad that they closed the ferry down.  When we got on the Ferry, Esra started talking about what we'd see, but it didn't take long for the ferry captain to pull away from the dock & start the tour.  Unfortunately the weather never really cooperated.  It was extremely cold & windy on the top deck, so we spent most of the time on the main level inside.  I went up top for a bit to take pictures, though.  The continental divide goes right down the river, so we started on the European side of Istanbul.  The European side is where most of the Istanbul citizens work, and the Asian side is where most live.  After we got to the suspension bridge, the boat turned around and floated up the Asian side.  There were mansions lining the coast, with costs of some going as high as $165 million.

When the ferry tour was over, we got on an underground train that went up to the higher part of the city.  It's mostly a shopping district, and when we came back up to the surface, there was a large demonstration going on.  There were also riot police standing side by side forming a barrier in case things got out of hand.  We decided to duck into a restaurant nearby and get lunch in the hopes that things would calm down while we were in there.

It did, and after lunch we continued down the shopping district street.  This was interesting, while walking down we saw some American fast food places that we haven't seen in a long time.  Who knew that Little Caesars and Arby's had operations in Turkey??  Some of the highlights of that walk was the largest Catholic Church in Istanbul tucked away behind a fence and a restaurant that looked normal from the outside, but when you walked in & upstairs, you suddenly had a great view of the Bosphorous.  Well, what would have been a great view had the weather been better.  At this point the rain turned to snow.  That was unexpected...no where in the weather report I looked at was snow forecast.   At the end of the street we heard loud yelling and a protest group was walking the street heading our way.  We got over on the side of the street, expecting them to keep going, but when they got to our spot, they stopped.  At that point they split in half, with half going to one side of the street and the other half moving towards us.  When someone lit off a flare, we got the heck out of there.  When we turned to look back, the entire street was filled with smoke.

We got back to the underground train and took it back down to the other side of town.  When we got out, we were near the oldest bridge in Istanbul.  There were fishermen lined up all along the bridge...there must have been at least a hundred poles over the side, if not more.  We crossed the bridge and decided to visit one more mosque.  This mosque was much smaller then the previous ones, but was unique because of the tiles used to cover the outside & inside of it.  They were all the original tiles used in the 16th century and were in great shape.  We had to hurry because it was getting really close to prayer time, and visitors aren't allowed in during that period.

At this point we parted ways with Esra.  Shanna & I wanted to visit one more mosque, and everyone else wanted to head back to the hotel to rest up after a long day.  Here's where we ran into a problem.  Esra took us to the tram stop, but it was closed because of a power outage.  Not just a local outage...the entire old town area was without power.  She was nice enough to walk us to the point where we could follow the tracks in the street back to our hotel.  The only thing we were disappointed in was that we couldn't go to that other mosque.  It was just too far to walk all the way there, especially in the snow.  So we walked back to the hotel.  But it was actually a peaceful walk.  Because of the power outage, there was almost no cars on the road in Old Town, just people strolling outside.  Most shops were actually still open, running on generator power.  The chestnut vendors were still out, so it was a nice walk and smelled great along the way.  The amazing thing is it even made the news in San Diego.  A friend of ours who lives out there sent us a note saying she'd heard about the snow storm & power outage in Istanbul and asked if we were ok.

For dinner no one wanted to go far, so we took them to the Cozy Pub (that was the name) we found on our first night.  There isn't much to write about, but not because we didn't enjoy ourselves.  It was really nice sitting there, eating delicious food, and enjoying some of the local food & drink.  We even ended the night with a bottle of famous Turkish liquor called Raki.  It wasn't bad!  We liked it enough to get a bottle to bring home with us.

Finally, around midnight, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we all met up for breakfast before heading our separate ways.  It was a beautiful day out, the complete opposite of the day before.  Since it was such a nice day, we decided to cancel our Turkish Bath appointment and head to the Süleymaniye Mosque, the second largest in Istanbul.  Like the Blue Mosque, it was huge & impressive on the outside, and just as beautiful on the inside.  There were only a handful of people there, so it was peaceful walking through it.

One thing interesting you might have noticed is how empty mosques are.  Unlike churches, which have seats (and kneelers, depending on the denomination), there is none of that in a mosque.  People come in with their prayer rugs, lay it out on the carpet, and pray on it.  Having grown up in churches, this was something completely new to me...I didn't even think of them not having any seating.

When we read the description of this mosque it mentioned that the namesake of the mosque, Sultan Süleymaniye, was buried there.  Sure enough, in the back, was a series of tombs & graves, including his.

After this, we still had 2 hours to kill.  I had gotten an iPhone app that showed a map of all attractions, and worked with the GPS to show ones near you.  I pulled it up see what was in the area, and it turns out there were two mosques nearby.  One was formerly an Eastern Orthodox Church, built sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries.  In the 13th century it became a Catholic Church, and in the 15th century it became a mosque, which it still functions as today.  This turned out to be a real gem.  It was tucked away in an alley, and is one we never would have found without the App.  Inside you could tell it was old...it still had the original columns and was amazing to walk through.

We headed to one more mosque, then made our way back to the hotel.  We were already packed, and the shuttle driver was already there waiting for us.  After checking out, the hotel had one more thing for us...a complimentary CD with Turkish music on it.

All in all, this was an amazing experience.  Istanbul is one of (if not the) most exotic city I've ever been to.  It has so much history behind it, and the people were incredibly friendly.  I also didn't realize how close Troy and the World War I battlefield of Gallipoli were.  We will definitely be back to Turkey.  If you ever have the chance to visit the country, jump on it...you won't regret it.

To see pictures, click here or any picture in this post.

Istanbul Part 1

This past week Shanna & I decided to take a long weekend for MLK weekend.  There had been various places we'd kicked around going to, but decided it would be a good time to try Istanbul, Turkey.  We found a great deal on direct flights & a hotel right in the heart of the old town area.

On Wednesday morning I dropped the dogs off at the kennel, then we headed to the metro which took us to the airport.  It was a quick 3 hour flight, and by 3pm we were in Istanbul.  The weather was cold & rainy, but it was supposed to clear up the next day, so I wasn't too concerned.  Because we were staying for more then three nights, the hotel offered a free shuttle service.  We've done the hotel shuttle service a few times at previous places, and it's always nice to walk out of baggage claim and have someone waiting there for you to load your bags in a car and drive you straight there.

When we arrived, as is standard every time we travel, the hotel had to take our passports to log them in, which takes about 5 minutes.  While we waited in the lobby, they brought us out hot tea.  I'm not a tea drinker, but I figured since we were here, I might as well try the local variety.  It wasn't bad...Shanna, who does drink tea, really liked it.  Below is a picture Shanna took of me waiting in the lobby.

After everything was set, they took our bags to our room and we got settled in.  We've stayed in our fair share of European hotel rooms, and this was by far one of the largest.  It even had a small balcony looking over the street below.  I had decided on this hotel when booking for a few reasons.  First, the reviews raved about the level of service from the employees.  So far, that was right on the money.  Second was the amazing view from the top floor.  That's where breakfast was served every morning, but I didn't want to wait, so I headed up stairs to look at it.  The rain had died down, and it was mostly clear out.  The view did not disappoint.  You could see over the entire city, and had amazing views of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia (I'll explain more about them later in the post).  Below is a shot of the Blue Mosque lit up at night.

It looked more like a spaceship then a mosque.  We spoke with Habib at the front desk, who couldn't have been more helpful.  We've gotten to the point where if at all possible, we try & hire a private guide to take us around.  It's more expensive then a conventional tour, but you get so much more out of it.  We initially asked Habib about getting a guide, and before we knew it, he had taken out a piece of paper and drawn out an entire itinerary of things we should see over the next few days, as well as "optional" things if we had time & were interested.  He also said the hotel worked closely with a guide who would take us around & show us the "highlights" of the old town area the next day if we were interested.  We definitely were, so he set that all up for us.  Since the weather was so bad that night, we decided to just walk around a little bit, get dinner, then call it a night.  We briefly walked around the Grand Bazaar, then came back to the hotel.

The next morning at breakfast the view was even more spectacular.  We could see the Golden Horn, Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara, as well as the half of Istanbul that was on the Asian continent.  When we were done we headed downstairs and were met by Esra, our guide.  Right off the bat we were comfortable with her.  Before we left she laid out a map and showed us all the places we'd be visiting.  We also got to know each other a little bit and found out she's been doing tours since 1993, and one of the main things she does is organize trips for Turkish people to visit the US.  She'd been to NY, DC, Atlantic City, and one of her favorite cities was San Diego.

We headed out of the hotel, and to our first destination, the area where the Hippodrome used to be.  I was disappointed that there were no more remnants of it left.  The Hippodrome was used when the Romans were in the area as a Chariot racing track.  By the time the Ottoman Empire took the city over in 1453, it was already ancient ruins.  Over the next 500 years, it decayed more & more until it was just paved over.  All that remains are the obelisks that were in the center of the track that were brought from Egypt in 390AD.

One neat thing in that area is the German Fountain.  It was given as a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm to the Sultan in 1901.  Apparently the two of them and Francis Joseph of Austria were good friends.  We found that out later on when we toured the Sultan's palace and there were paintings of the three of them there.  Right across from there was the Museum for Islamic Arts.  This is a museum we probably wouldn't have visited on our own, but it was actually really interesting with Esra there telling us about it.  The museum used to be the palace of the Grand Vizier whose wife was the Sultan's sister.  Now it's a museum that showcases the Nomad Turks and the famous Turkish Carpets.

Next up was the Blue Mosque.  Shanna & I have been to cities all over Europe in the 2 years we've been here, and seen a lot of things, but until now, they'd all been historically Christian.  This was our first time in a Mosque and a city that was historically Islamic.  The first thing you notice is the size of the Mosque.  It was enormous.  Since the mosque was still actively used, we had to take our shoes off before entering.  Once inside, we found a place to sit while Esra told us about the place.  The Blue Mosque is not it's actual name, it's a nickname visitors have given it over the years because of the abundance of blue paint used.  It's real name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.  It was completed in 1616, and for awhile, was subject to some controversy because of the number of Minarets (the tall Spires outside) it had.  At the time, the Mosque in Mecca also had six minarets, and people thought it might confuse pilgrims into thinking they were at Mecca.  They easily solved this problem, though, by building a seventh minaret in Mecca.  To date, it's the only mosque with seven spires.  Another neat thing was the lighting.  The ceiling was extremely tall, but the lights hung only a few feet above my head.  The reason being was before electricity, they were oil burning.  By keeping them low, it prevented damage to the ceiling.  Also, at that level, the cross draft would push the smoke right out the back door, preventing it from building in the mosque.

We headed out from there to the Hagia Sophia right across the street.  First up, though, was a trip into the Turkish Bath's.  Esra wanted us to see them and see if we were interested in making a reservation.  They were beautiful inside, so we decided to make reservations for Sunday morning before our flight out.

The Hagia Sophia is one of the most impressive places we visited all weekend, and I'd even go so far as to say one of the most impressive buildings I've ever been in period.  It was built & destroyed twice between it's first iteration in 360AD and it's final, current iteration completed in 537.  Between 537 and 1453, it was used as an Eastern Orthodox church and a Catholic Church.  In 1453, when the Turks took over the city, it was converted into a Mosque.  Here's the strange thing.  Instead of destroying the Christian symbols inside, the Turks plastered over them to hide them.  In 1931, it was converted to a museum.  When they started to do the restoration and removed the plaster, they found that it had perfectly preserved the ancient Christian mosaics.  Images that never would have lasted this long looked like they were painted yesterday.  The result was some amazing religious duality.  At the front of the inside of it you had the Arabic symbol for Muhammed on the left, the Arabic symbol for Allah on the right, and in between, a mosaic of Mary & Jesus.

At this point we were getting a little hungry, so Esra took us to a small restaurant in back alley she liked.  Along the way Shanna mentioned that I had wanted to visit the town of Batman if it was close.  Esra had a look of total confusion on her face, and asked why in the world I'd want to visit there.  It's not close, and there's nothing to see or do there.  Then suddenly it clicked...she realized I wanted to go because the name was "Batman".  She was laughing so hard she almost had tears coming down her face.  Yeah yeah...what can I say, I thought it'd be awesome to say I was in Batman, Turkey. :)  At the restaurant we shared a large plate of vegetables cooked in olive oil, and we each had a bowl of Lentil soup.  The vegetable plate was delicious, but our favorite part was the grape leaves wrapped around rice and soaked in olive oil.  We liked it so much we ordered it several more times that weekend at other places.

After lunch it was time for the Carpet Shopping experience.  A good friend of ours had recently been to Istanbul and said that even if we didn't want to buy a carpet, we should go through the experience because of how enjoyable it was.  When we walked in they greeted us and took us downstairs to the carpet area.  We sat down on comfy plush chairs, and they served us hot tea.  Once we were settled, the "show" started.  They would bring out carpet after carpet made from Silk, Wool and Cotton and put them out on display for us, talking about them and the stories each pattern told.  We also got to watch a lady hand weave the carpet.  That was INCREDIBLE.  Her hands were flying over the loom so fast I couldn't tell what she was doing.  She then slowed it down so we could see, and I couldn't believe she had been doing that so fast.  One thing we learned here was I'm an awful haggler, but Shanna's great.  We found an antique carpet we really liked, and Shanna was able to haggle them down significantly from the original price.  We hadn't planned on buying a carpet, but loved one in particular.  The only concern I had was Murphy has a tendency to sometimes pee on rugs.  I didn't want to spend money on a carpet only to have him relieve himself on it.  The first time he did he'd become an outdoor dog.  But they said they could sew in little rungs to hang it on the wall, so that's what we'll do.  They offer free shipping world wide, so it should arrive at our house in 4-5 weeks!

From there we walked through the tiny streets & alleys until we got to the Grand Bazaar.  At that point it was late afternoon, and time for one of the 5 times a day Muslims are required to pray.  To let you know it's time, a man called a Muezzin chants in Arabic.  Before electricity he'd climb to the top of one of the minarets at the mosque and his voice would carry over the city.  Now they have giant speakers hooked up on all minarets across the city.  I didn't know that it wasn't recorded, though.  They use a speaker system, but it's still a human being chanting live...it's never been a recording.  It was neat to hear it called out over the city while we walked through the Grand Bazaar, knowing that 500 years ago people here were doing the exact same thing that we were doing right now.

The Grand Bazaar is a huge labyrinth of shops and vendors selling all kinds of things.  Everything from brand names to things hand made locally, you could find it here.  I got my standard Stein that I get from every new country we visit, and Shanna got all kinds of little things.  It seemed like every other vendor there knew Esra and would say hi to her, then offer us the "best price, guaranteed".  On the first night we were there, I hated how pushy they were, but by this point I'd gotten used to it and just considered it part of the experience.

Our last stop with Esra after that was the Spice Market.  This was really neat...it was small, but crowded with a ton of shops selling all kinds of spices, meats, cheeses, tea and other food.  We went into one store where Esra knew the owners, and they let us sample all kinds of desserts.  Of course, they also served us tea.  I drank more tea over that weekend then I have in my entire life.  Turkish Delight, the name they have for these treats, consist of sugar, gel and various fruits.  It might not sound all that appealing, but it was actually really good.  We ended up getting a few packages for ourselves and friends, and Shanna bought some apple tea from them.

Outside the Spice Market was the fish market.  It was funny watching them because the vendor shops were built into the side of a building.  On top of the building was an entire army of sea gulls just sitting there.  Every time a piece of fish would drop on the ground, the vendors would pick it up and throw it up on the roof for the birds.  In that area was a restaurant that Esra said had the best Baklava in the city.  Since I didn't try every vendor, that's impossible to say, but it WAS the best we would have all weekend.  It practically melted in your mouth.   We got Esra's contact info and told her we might user her again on Saturday when our friends came into town.

That night we were tired from walking around all day, so we found a pub, ate dinner and called it a night.

The next morning it was BEAUTIFUL.  Not a cloud in the sky, but it was cold.  Our friends were flying in early that afternoon, but we had all morning to do something, so we decided to tour a few palaces.  Right on the water is Dolmabahçe Palace, former home of the Sultan.  It's huge, and an impressive sight from the water.

We took the tram and it dropped us off five minutes from the palace.  When we got there, we were disappointed to see it followed the same trend that seems to be sweeping Europe, which is no pictures allowed inside.  I get the no flash rule because of what constant light exposure can do to antiques, but no pictures period is ridiculous.  They'll gladly sell you pictures in the gift shop at the end though.  It's really too bad, too because the palace was amazing on the inside.  Before we could start the tour, though, we had to put pink plastic caps around our shoes.  They looked like shower caps.  I almost couldn't get them on my big feet.  Once it inside, it was beautiful.  His bathing room was made entirely of marble.  The ceiling, walls, and floor, all marble.  There were huge windows that faced the river from inside the bathing area.  The staircase that led to the Grand Ceremonial room was amazing.  The railing was all marble, and are you ready for this?  The banisters were all made from crystal.  All this lead to the Grand Ceremonial room that was HUGE.  It was 80 meters high and the dome at the top was 25 meters across.  Hanging from the dome was the largest crystal chandelier I've ever seen, weighing in at 4.5 tons.    After that section, we went outside and to the back, where we toured the Harem section.  This was the area where the Sultan's wives and mother lived.  It was interesting, but as you can imagine, not nearly as impressive as where the Sultan lived.

We didn't have time at this point to visit the second palace, so we hopped on the tram and went back to the hotel to meet up with our friends.

In looking over the size of this post, I'm going to split it up into two posts.

Click here or any picture in this post to see all the pictures from the trip.

To continue on to Part 2, click here.

Christmas Markets

Shanna & I said this year that we wanted to visit Christmas Markets outside our area, and outside of Germany.  This past weekend was the first time this season we'd had a chance to do that.  We spent the weekend in Colmar, France and on the way home today, stopped in Freiburg, Germany.

I got off work Friday at 3pm, headed home, got the dogs, and drove out to Esslingen where Shanna was enjoying a Christmas party with her coworkers.  I took the dogs in the restaurant and we had dinner, then we hit the road.  It was raining a bit, but the wind was ridiculous.  More then once I felt like the car was getting blown into the next lane.  We eventually made it, though, around 9pm that night.  We were both exhausted, but we hadn't had dinner yet, so we ate at the hotel restaurant.  We brought the dogs down with us, and when the waitress saw them, she petted them and put her hand out to Milo and said "Bonjour'...and Milo shook her hand!  I couldn't stop laughing.  She put her hand out, so that's what Milo recognized, but seeing her say "Bonjour" and seeing Milo shake her hand cracked us up.

Saturday morning when we took the dogs out to do their morning usual, I noticed a plaque on a rock in front of a tree.  It was a Sequoia tree from California that was dedicated from the US to the people of France in recognition of 200 years of friendship.  After that we ate breakfast at the hotel, and they had the most amazing spread of cheeses out.  My favorite was this goat cheese that I couldn't get enough of.

After breakfast we put the coats on the dogs and hit the town.  Colmar had five separate Christmas Markets, but they were all connected, so you could easily walk from market to market.  The first one we came to was the kids Christmas Market.  They had vendors with kids toys and a few rides.  One that stood out was the mechanical horse rides.  Kids would sit on the horse, and it'd ride along a track in a circle.  For those that have heard the story of the debacle of when I attempted horse riding, this would be the closest I'll ever come to riding a horse again.

From that market we walked along one of the many canals that run through Colmar and noticed a sign that said at 5pm that day there would be kids singing Christmas Carols in boats in the canal.  We made a note to come back later that evening.  Next up was an indoor market with all kinds of fresh food being sold.  Cheese, bread, seafood, you name it, they had it fresh.

We walked around the various markets until it was obvious the dogs were starting to get worn out.  On the way back to the hotel we came across an old Carousel that had been converted into a cafe!  It was closed, but we took a few pictures.  The owner (we assume) was cleaning up inside and his dog was in there...it looked like a Jack Russel, just like Murphy.  As we walked around the Carousel looking in, the dog was running along with us, inside, growling at Milo & Murphy.

We headed back to the hotel from there and laid down for a bit.  Once Milo & Murphy were settled down we left some toys out for them in the room and left them there.  They've gotten to be great hotel dogs...even though Milo whined a bit, he quickly quieted down and they were quiet the rest of the night until we got back.

From the hotel we walked back into town and headed to some of the places we couldn't go earlier because we had the dogs.  First up was St. Martin's church.  It was built in 1375, and has survived ever since.  Inside there was a plaque thanking the Virgin Mary for protecting the city during WWII and liberating it from the Nazi's on Feb. 2nd, 1945.  There was also a plaque dedicated to those killed in WWI.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering through the beautiful old town area.  It looked perfectly preserved, exactly like it might have 500 years ago.  Shortly before 5pm we headed back to the bridge over the canal.  We got there early, but there was already a crowd.  Luckily a spot opened up and we were able to get a good spot overlooking the canal.  Shortly after 5pm, when it was dark, the first boat pulled up to the bridge.  5 more pulled up and lined up side by side across the canal.  Then a boat pulled up behind them with Santa inside and a ton of presents.  The kids then began to sing various carols, some we recognized, but most we didn't.  It was strange hearing "Oh Christmas Tree" and "Jingle Bells" in French.  The Jingle Bells song was neat because they sang it in French and English.

Once they were done we took a walk, looking for dinner.  There was a place we thought looked good, but the lady said they didn't open until 6:30, and it was only 5:30.  Place after place we went to were all closed until 6:30 or 7pm.  So we got some Gluehwein (or Vin Cauld as it was called in French) and sat on benches along the canal for a bit.  We also headed to a Belgian Bar we'd seen earlier in the day.  Eventually it was 6:30, but when we went back, the same lady said they were booked for the night.  Why she didn't tell us that an hour ago was beyond us.  We tried a few more places, and they all said the same thing...they were booked solid with reservations all night long.  Who would have thought we'd need reservations??  We eventually found a place that wasn't too expensive, and what a find.  The food was AMAZING.  The waitress didn't speak much English, and the menu was entirely in French.  Here's an example of what the menu looked like:

So we decided to be adventuresome and randomly picked two things off the menu.  I got a DELICIOUS chicken cooked in a Riesling sauce (although it was brown, which I thought was strange), potatoes and mushrooms.  I demolished the entire thing, even the mushrooms.  It was one of the best meals we've had while living here in Europe.  Shanna got Salmon on top of buttery garlic mashed potatoes and capers.

For dessert we decided to roll the dice again, and again came up with a winner.  It was a plate with a shot of cappuccino, a brownie, ice cream, and a glass with some sort of strawberry sauce and whipped cream flavored jello.  I wasn't a fan of the coffee since I don't like coffee, but the rest of it was fantastic.  All & all it was an amazing meal, and I'm so glad we ran into problems with other places which forced us to try this place.  Had we gone somewhere else, the menu would have been in English and we wouldn't have tried something new.

After dinner we were full, and worn out from walking around all day.  We went back to the hotel & called it a night.

Sunday morning we woke up to snow coming down outside.  I was less then thrilled since we had 2 1/2 hours to drive home, and the last thing I wanted to do was drive home in snow.  But we got lucky.  It only lasted for 15 minutes, didn't stick, and the sun came out after.  After breakfast & checkout, we loaded the car up and headed to Freiburg, Germany.  It was close to Colmar, and on the way back home, so it was easy to get there.  Freiburg was pretty neat...it was no Colmar, but few markets are.  We walked around the old town area, and saw something interesting.  Apparently, Freiburg is a sister city with Madison, Wisconsin!  Who knew?

Shanna found a wood molding of a boy & a snowman that she can use to make Christmas cookies, as well as some special paper so that she can use that same molding to make Christmas Cards.  It's too late to do it this year, but maybe next year.  We wandered around the market, and once done, headed back home.

This past weekend was a LOT of fun, and Colmar is by far our favorite Christmas Market.  The food, drinks, and ambiance of the town was amazing, and we highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Southern Germany or Eastern France.

Over the next few months we have trips to Hamburg and Ireland planned, so check back soon!

To see the pictures, click here or any picture above.

Thanksgiving in Sicily

I know it's been awhile since my last post, but not too much has happened.  Last week I started at SAIC and life's been busy getting myself acquainted with the new job.  Last week was Thanksgiving and over the summer, Shanna & I decided we wanted to go somewhere warm.  After kicking around various ideas, we settled on Taormina, Italy, on the island of Sicily.  I mentioned it to my parents and invited them along.  They got their tickets and met us down there.  They flew into Rome Sunday, toured there, then flew to Catania Airport Thursday and met us there.

Thursday morning is when we left, and it was EARLY.  So early, in fact, that it was before the trains started running, so we had to drive.  We only live 15 minutes from the airport, so we got there plenty early.  It was FREEZING that morning.  By mid day it's been in the 50's for the past few weeks, but before the sun rises, it's been in the high 20's.  Our flight to Catania went smooth, and when we stepped off the plane, it was 70 degrees & sunny.  I had previously arranged for a shuttle service from the airport to the hotel, and am glad I did.  There wasn't really a public transportation option, so we'd have had to get a taxi for the 45 minute drive.  The drive was absolutely beautiful.  Catania & Taormina are right on the coast, so our entire drive was along the coast line.  Last May I visited Rome with some friends, and while I enjoyed it, I never really saw the Italian country side that I think of when thinking of Italy.  We definitely did this time though...it was the Med on our right and the beautiful old Italian countryside on our left.

We eventually got to our hotel and checked in.  I'd read in the reviews how friendly the staff was and how beautiful the view from the outside terrace was, and neither disappointed.  Our family must have been the only people checking in that day, because when I walked in & said I wanted to check in, the guy behind the desk, Sebastiano, said "Yes, welcome Mr. Norton.  Your parents are down at the restaurant.".  After we checked in, we walked out on the terrace and saw Mount Etna.

We then headed down to the restaurant and met my parents & brother there.  It was good to see them again.  We ate lunch and walked around the old town area for the rest of the afternoon.  Shanna & I called it an early night since it'd been a long day.

The next morning the plan was to explore the city.  The hotel provided breakfast, and then called a cab for us.  There was a village way up on a hill over looking the city, and up there was the remains of the old castle & fortress. 

On the drive up, our cabbie gave us a mini-tour, explaining all the things we were seeing.  He even pointed out the huge land mass in the distance across the water...turns out that was mainland Italy.  When we got to the top, we headed to the old fortress.  There wasn't much left of it, but it had a beautiful view of Taormina & the Med. Sea.

After exploring the fortress, we explored the little village up there.  There was a church (of course) and several restaurants and shops.  Mom & Shanna spent most of the afternoon wandering through the shops there, picking up all kinds of little things.  We also ate lunch while up there at a restaurant with a panoramic view of the city & hills.  The picture I posted above is pretty much what the view of the city was like from the restaurant...the picture below is of the hills.

Later that afternoon, we walked down from the village to a chapel on the hill side, but it had already closed for the day.  That night was the big Arkansas/LSU game, so we went to a local supermarket to get some beer, then set up the laptop in the lobby of the hotel, where they had free WiFi.  Arkansas is becoming an international sensation.  We've watched them play over the internet in Austria, Germany, France, and now Italy.  Unfortunately they lost, but it was still fun watching some college football.

Saturday we'd talked with Sebastiano, and he set up our day for us.  A driver would take us down to Siracusa, and we'd be met there by a guide who would give us a personal tour of the city.  Once we got there, we were met by Rosa.  The first thing I noticed was her perfect English...so perfect, in fact, that she seemed to have an American accent.  It turns out she was born in Sicily and when she was 8, her family immigrated to Connecticut.  When she graduated from High School, she moved back to Sicily and has lived there ever since.  She still has family in the US, so the visits have helped her keep up with her English, and her American accent.  We started in Largo Port, and walked through the city.  We started down a street with a house that was one of the few buildings to survive the devastating earthquake of 1693.  That fact jumped out to Shanna & I because we remembered learning that earthquake also decimated Dubrovnik, Croatia, killing 90 percent of the population in Dubrovnik.  We eventually got to the Siracusa Duomo.  That church had a fascinating history.  It was first built thousands of years ago as a Greek Temple for Apollo.  When Christians took the territory over, they converted it to a Church.  Eventually Muslims took the town over, and converted it to a Mosque.  Finally, the Catholics took the city back over and turned it back into a Church.  When you go in, you can see the old Greek columns, the area where the round top of the Mosque used to be, and of course, all the Christian symbols currently there. 

We continued walking around the city, seeing all the various landmarks, including the remains of the first Greek Temple built in the city in 800 B.C.  Our driver picked us up and drove us across town to the location of Roman & Greek ruins.  The Romans had built a small Gladiator ring there.  In the center was a pit with two columns in the center.  The Gladiators would stand on the columns and try to knock the other off.  The loser would fall into the pit of water, which had crocodiles in it.  She also showed us the mass graves they'd bury the dead Gladiators in.  Right around the corner from it was the old Greek Theater.  The hill it was built into consisted of Limestone, so all the Greeks had to do was chisel the stage & seats out right in the mountain.  It's the only Greek Theater in the world built that way.  Behind the theater we walked through the old rock quarry where they mined the rock that was used to build the city.  They used slave labor, and it was an accepted fact that once you went in, you never came out.  The slaves who died down there were just left there.

Finally Rosa showed us the old altar area where they performed animal sacrifices.  The king at the time sacrificed 450 cows for protection against the Romans.  What the people didn't know was he had made a secret deal with the Romans to not attack.  Siracusa had peace for 22 years of his reign.  When he died, a resistance movement sprang up and killed all the Romans who were living in the town and blockaded themselves.  Archimedes, who lived in the city, came up with inventions to keep the Romans at bay.  It's a 3 day journey by boat from Rome to Siracusa.  He first came up with catapults that launched stones doused in oil & lit on fire.  They repelled the Romans, who had never seen anything like that before.  They assumed Siracusa had a God protecting them.  When they tried again, Archimedes had a new invention.  He'd put a huge magnifying glass on a wooden lever that could move up, down, left & right.  The result was they could set the Roman ships on fire from a distance.  The Romans finally conquered Siracusa by sending spies, who found out the real reason Siracusa was able to fend them off.  One night the Romans snuck in and the spies let them in.  They then proceeded to decimate the city, and beheaded Archimedes.

The history of the town was absolutely fascinating.  The next & last stop was a Basillica in the town of Arcireal.  It's famous because it has the tomb of St. Clemente, the fourth pope, who died in 89 AD.  It was absolutely beautiful inside.  After we finished there we headed back to Taormina.  Shanna & Mom walked through a few shops until we came to a restaurant to eat at, Mama Rosa's.

It was some of the best Italian food we'd had.  We actually didn't have a bad dish the entire time we were there, but this place stood out.  I had lasagna & ravioli, and Shanna had seafood ravioli.  It was our last dinner before my parents left the next morning, so we had wine, great food, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  My parents & brother had a 6am flight out the next morning, so we said our goodbyes that night.

The next morning we got up early.  Shanna & I had a 5:30pm flight out, so we decided to do one more tour before we left.  Sebastiano made all the arrangements, and even acted as our driver that day.  Shanna & I first took a picture on the terrace with the sun rising.

The plan for the day was for Sebastiano to drive us to Mount Etna, us to tour it, then he'd drive us to the airport in Catania.  We hit the road, and it was a crystal clear beautiful fall day.  The leaves on the trees were turning and there was only a little bit of smoke coming out of the Mount Etna volcano.  We got there a little early, so Sebastiano took us to a crater that was now dormant.  All around us most of the frost had melted, but it didn't in the shadows.  The result was you had some interesting shapes of frost.  At that point we were only 2,000 meters high (approx. 6,000 ft), but we had a beautiful view of Taormina.

Finally it was time for the tour to start.  Normally they have a cable car running up most of the mountain, but it was broken, so they took us up by bus.  By this time the clouds had rolled in and you couldn't see much, but when we got to the 3,000 Meter mark (9,000 ft), we were above the clouds and it was bright & sunny.  It was amazing seeing the clouds from above.  The guide gave the tour in Italian, but we had some English speakers in the group, so he'd explain things sometimes in English too.  He showed us the house the guides used to live in that was now covered in Volcanic rock from the eruption in 2002.  Some parts of the rocks were above a fissure, so if you grabbed a handful, the rocks were actually hot!  It was surrounded by snow, so it was really weird grabbing hot rocks.  He walked us all over the top of the mountain, and it was one of the most amazing experiences we've had since moving here.  After the tour, they bussed us down part of the way, and now the cable car was working, so we took that the rest of the way down.  At one point the cable car came to a complete stop, and it was just Shanna & I in the car.  It was cloudy again, so you couldn't see far around you, but we could clearly see the LONG drop below us.  Thankfully it only stopped for a few minutes. :)  When we got to the bottom, we walked through some of the gift shops, and I finally found a souvenir I wanted.  I usually get beer steins, but I thought this time I'd get something more appropriate for Italy...a wine carafe!

Sebastiano then drove us to the airport.  It had been a long day, and in that warm sun, I was OUT.  Shanna told me at the airport that Sebastiano had noticed me asleep and made sure to go over speed bumps as slow as possible so he wouldn't wake me.  As you can see from this post, the hotel was GREAT.  If you ever find yourself in Taormina, stay at the Hotel Continental.  You won't regret it.

The trip home was uneventful, and we finally landed back in Stuttgart around 11pm...and it was back to the cold weather.

This trip was a LOT of fun, and Shanna & I agreed that this is one of the few places we really want to go back to to explore more. 

You can view the pictures by clicking here, or any of the pictures in this post.