Gelato

"Gelato" means ice cream in Italian. Yum!

 

Last Monday we got on our cruise ship, the Costa Fascinosa, and our first stop on Tuesday was Bari, Italy.  When we got off the cruise ship we went to explore the city.  The main thing we did there was eat gelato!  I had cioccolato and mora (chocolate and berry).  From the gelato shop you could see....a castle!

 

 

It wasn't a very big castle, but we went to see it anyway. It was called Castello Svevo, built by the Normans in about 1100. 

 

 

We didn't have much time in port, so after a stroll around the city, we headed back to our ship....for more gelato!!!!

 

 

 

Pioggia

"Pioggia" means "rain" in Italian.

We drove to Venice from Vicenza last Monday.  Our car was nearly washed away in a rainstorm in Vicenza where we had parked for church (which was cancelled half way through), and it was still raining through the night, so we thought for sure the Piazza San Marco in Venice would be flooded, but ironically, it was not.

After dropping our luggage off at the cruise ship, we had to take a water bus to get to the famous center of Venice, the Piazza San Marco. 

When we got there I noticed that there was a lot of statues with lions with wings.  Kieran and I started to count how many times we saw lions with wings.  Then my dad told us that the lions were the symbol of Venice.  (No wonder...)

We also noticed that in the middle of the piazza, there were some things that looked like low-down tables that were stacked all over the place.  Then Kieran asked my dad, "What are those?"  And he answered, "Those are the sidewalks that they can put up in the square if it's flooded, so people can still walk there."  It was pretty obvious how much it would flood, because it's right next to the canal, and if it rains too much, like it has been recently, it could definitely flood.

We saw a lot of gondolas and nobody was riding in them because it was starting to rain harder.

Because it was raining, I was looking for an umbrella to buy.  We saw lots of them for sale, but none of them were that cool.  When it stopped raining, I finally found the umbrella I wanted to buy...It has lots of pictures of Venice on it...so I can remember my trip to Venice in the rain.

Gute Fahrt

"Gute Fahrt": Translated "Good Ride"

That is something a German person would say if you are going on a long car trip.  Yesterday I went on a long car trip.  I was in three countries in one day!

We started in Germany on Friday (Country #1).  We drove and drove and then we were in Munich.  Munich is a much bigger city than where we live.

 

 

When I woke up in the morning I saw out our hotel window, a flying forklift.  

 

I also saw the mountains in the distance. 

 

We left after breakfast to go to Austria (country #2).  Before we crossed the border we stopped at a little town called Oberaudorf (we think).  My mom thought that when we opened the car door we would hear yodeling....but we didn't.

 

As we crossed the mountains into Austria we saw giant green mountains on both sides.  We took a little "detour" (good thing we had a GPS) through a whole bunch of mountain villages that were barely clinging to the side of the hill. 

 

It started getting rainy as we crossed the border into Italy (country #3).  There are lots of castles all along the way. They all looked really cool.  Here is a picture of one in Italy just before we reached Bolzano.

 

We finally got to our hotel in Vicenza.  Still raining.....But they had really cool sinks!

 

The rain made everything look pretty clean...

 

One really interesting thing is that in Europe the floor levels are different from the U.S.  The ground level (or lobby) is level 0.  And the floor above that (which we would call the 2nd floor) is the first floor, etc.

 

This is the view from our window.  Still raining....

 

We went to church on Sunday, but they had to cut it short because everyone was freaking out that it was going to flood, because it's right next to a river.

 

Good thing we are getting on a boat tomorrow......(Next stop, Venice! Stay tuned!)