The "Chill" Day

The fourth and final day in London and we are doing our best to wind things down, finish what we wanted to see and get up early tomorrow morning to get on out of here. We began our morning late. Late breakfast (even though we didn't really want to eat it), late start and we were off. Please take notice of the giant breakfast each morning... after 4 days of it Kristen is doing her best to enjoy it... and... the nemesis is BACK!

WE discovered that weekend London is MUCH more crowded than week London. The subways are CRAZY! We like week London much better! We began the day in Notting Hill. It's one of our favotire movies so we (or maybe just I) was so excited to see the Travel Book Shop from the movie. I actually stood in front of it and made Blake act out scenes with me! Just kidding! But I did say "Blake, I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."

Then, we ate the dish that I think has the most possible calories that can be squeezed onto a paper plate! Portabella Market is full of street vendors selling fresh fruits and vegetables and of course crepes! Instead of being good like all the skinny Europeans and getting fresh fruit, we of course went straight for the crepes. That's right, crepes with caramel and bananas and half a bottle of whipped cream. Yeah, the market was full of all sorts of fun vendors and antique shops. Unfortunately, since we couldn't afford vintage China or $800 antique maps, we just looked and ate our sticky paper plate full of goodness.

Even after crepes, we of course went to eat lunch. We actually found the OLDEST Pub in Kensington, which is where the fancy people of London live. We thought it was old like 500 years old... but little did we know we'd found the Luby's of London! When we got there at 2, it looked good. But then after about 15 minutes the dinner crowd started pouring in. Blake swears he heard one ask for the carrot and raisin salad! It was full of old old Irish people and guys that could drink Blake under the table! It was called The Goat, more like the OLD goat.

In order to work off our fish-n-chips and pie (mmmm... puff pastry) we took a walk through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. We saw Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived. After, we took off to Oxford Street. This is basically where all the uppity Euros and tourists, and those who wish to be, go to shop. Of course, all the $$$ shops are in this area. One in particular that we went to, Hamley's, the largest toy store in London. It was fun, but it had to be a parent's worst nightmare. We walked the floors and looked at everything but left quickly.

Then of course, we ate some more. Kristen had wanted to do afternoon tea service, so we found a small place across from Harrod's and had afternoon tea. Let's just say that afternoon tea is not cheap. But according to Kristen, it was good. Now we can call ourselves true British visitors. Fish-n-chips and afternoon tea!

For our last night in London we're going to head to see the Tate Modern, which is full of weird modern art I don't think even we'll get and then to a nice restaurant with a view overlooking the Thames. After a nice stroll down the river to see the sights all lit up, we'll call it a night and get ready for our 4 a.m. taxi to Victoria train station. We're averaging about 5 hours a night anyway, so why stop now! It will be a nice way to say bye to London.

It's been a great trip! We'll see you all soon!

Kristen's Favorite

We did it. We actually did it! We went to Stonehenge and a couple of other places. But Stonehenge was the highlight. 25' rocks weighing as much as 50 tons standing tall in the middle of nowhere. The wind whipping across the English plains but we saw it.


Before anything else, back to last night. We said that we would see naked Harry Potter in this play and believe me we got more than our money's worth. I don't even think that blogging about it is appropriate. Good story though. We didn't know he was going to be THAT naked. After the play we decided to make it a Harry Potter Night. We wanted to try and find the 9 3/4 platform where he goes to Hogwarts in the movie. But before that we made a few pitstops. One, I finally got my Cadbury cream egg McFlurry from McDonalds! WOOHOO! Two, Blake wanted to have a Guinness in a true English pub, so we went to one called Waxy's Little Sister. Three, we decided we needed take out Chinese at this point (1 am) so we went to a high-class establishment called (really) Special Zone 1997 and got some takeout. Then, we decided to shutdown the subway looking for Harry Potter's platform. Unfortunately, we never found it, but we did eat some REALLY good spring rolls!


Also on our trip today, Windsor Castle. We saw the gorgeous state rooms where the queen entertains and lives. Also, Queen Mary's dollhouse! It had miniature works of art, miniature crown jewels and even working plumbing and heating! We also FINALLY got to take a picture with a FUZZY HAT! 


After Windsor castle we headed to Stonehenge, amazing. Windy, but amazing. It's hard to imagine how those rocks got there, or why anyone wanted to put them there in the first place!

Then over to Bath, which we loved! Bath was the site of the Roman Baths. It was originally a temple where the British Romans came to worship the Celtic god of water. Now the water is a little green and you can't even touch it or your hand will fall off. Really! It's also a really cute town where all the buildings are made of the same buttery yellow bath stone. We took a little break and had a Cadbury dark chocolate hot chocolate. YUM! You can see there is a theme here. It's called eat as much Cadbury as possible before leaving London.

Tonight we're headed out to dinner and then to plan our last day in London. Talk to you tomorrow!

Another City, Another Dome

The second day of our London vacation started later than the first day, but with much more rest. Kristen and I went to sleep early Wednesday night in order to make it through Thursday. We got up, ate our full English and got on the train to Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square to search for some discount theatre tickets. But of course, in true Vacek fashion, we not only did not pick up discount tickets, we got expensive Naked Harry Potter tickets. For those of you who do not know, Daniel Radcliffe is in a play called Equus, where he apparently goes full frontal. GREAT! Obvious sarcasm.

Our travels then led us to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard where a British band plays When The Saints Come Marching In. Interesting. It was fun, but crowded, and Kristen was mad that she did not get to take a close up picture with one of the guys in the funny fuzzy hats. Maybe some other time...

  

Then, since we we're on vacation we had to climb a dome! We went to St. Paul's where we climbed the "easy" 524 steps to the top of the dome. We were altogether unimpressed with the steps, but the cathedral was beautiful! The mosaics are much more ornate than St. Peter's.

After, we took a trip to Trafalgar Square where I used my crazy upper body strength to hoist myself up and take a picture with the Lion. Actually, we had to sit up here for a while until someone came by to take our picture. We were in a lot of other people's pictures though! We're so popular!


Now we're off in a rush to see Naked Harry Potter! Tomorrow is our tour to Windsor castle, Stonehenge and Bath. Should be lots of fun!

Ok, so I said I was going to be funny this time so here's my joke... Why did the pelican cross the road? To ditch the paparazzi! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!


Seriously though, these people chased this poor pelican down the road for like 20 minutes in St. James Park. Poor pelican! I would've bit them!

See you tomorrow for the pile of rocks!

London Calling!

After a little trip to the President's Club (Hey! We're getting used to this!), a flight where every SINGLE flight attendant on the plane knew we were Jen's neighbors and wanted to give us drinks, and about two hours of sleep a piece we did London in true Vacek style. We're WORN OUT!

Today was gorgeous so we started with the London Eye. You could see for miles! It was a great way to start the day as we got the lay of the land.


Then on the GREAT (note the extreme sarcasm) advice of one of the London Eye ticket givers, we decided to make the "30 minute" walk to the Tower of London. An hour and a half later we FINALLY got to the Tower.


We did the full tour with one of the Beefeaters. He had his share of corny jokes but it was really informative. We basically had the place to ourselves. We heard rumors of crazy lines, but we didn't have any! We saw the crown jewels (a 520 CARAT DIAMOND... Blake's going to get me one of those for my birthday) and learned all the history of the tower. By the way, the Tower Bridge is the Colosseum of London. We'll have fifty million pictures of it for everyone when we get home!


By this time we were STARVING, so our first official meal in London was 40 dollar hamburgers and BOY were they good! After walking all day nothing takes better than a burger. Even if it is like eating a 20 dollar bill! I also learned NEVER to get in the cute red phone booths. They smell like week old pee...


After that fun we saw many dead people, all in one place. Westminster Abby was beautiful. There were just a LOT of dead people, a LOT. Mary Queen of Scots, almost all the kings and queens... pretty cool.

For our last stop we made our way to Harrod's. WOW. Seven floors that are each as big as a mall. We spent about 20 minutes getting lost in the toys. They have an entire Macy's size area for just toys. One whole room is nothing but stuffed animals! We fit in with the bougie Londoners quite well though and had a little Harrod's coffee and sweets break. Blake's tiramisu was yummy!

With all that fun behind us, we're going to make it an early night and hit the ground running early in the morning again. We're planning to make it to Notting Hill (so I can take my Travel Book Company picture!), St. Paul's, Blake's going to have a Guinness in a true London Pub, and maybe see a play. Should be another awesome day!

Tomorrow we'll be MUCH funnier. Today the Vaceks are TIRED...

Labor Day in L.A.

I think the bet was..."Mike, if you get married I will..."

Hermosa Beach, CA

More Pictures of Florence

The city of Florence from the top of the Cathedral.

The River Arno from the Ponte Vecchio.

The Ponte Vecchio. 

The Palazzo Vecchio.

The view of Florence from the rooftop terrace at our bed and breakfast.

 

Brunelleschi's Dome on Santa Maria Del Fiore.

More Pictures of Rome

The Colosseum and its maze of tunnels.

What a Gladiator might have seen entering the Colosseum.

So much Colosseum, so little time. 

Sitting on random excavations in the middle of the Roman Forum.

The Forum. 

Inside St. Peter's Square.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica. All mosaic. 

The Vatican and Vatican Museums 

from the top of Michaelangelo's Dome at St. Peter's.

The mosaic beauty inside Michaelangelo's Dome in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Pantheon...there is hole in the roof...really...a hole...

The Spanish Steps with Piazza del Popolo under restoration...

No way...something is being restored...CRAZY!

The Colosseum at night.

Kristen and I with the Colosseum at night.

The Forum at night.

Peaceful on Palantine Hill.

Fountain at Piazza Venezia.

Piazza Venezia. HUGE.

Standard Italian lunch. A little pizza, a little gnocchi, 

Coke (3.50 Euro = $4.50), 1/2 liter of wine (2 euro = $2.50).

Venezia

Our last stop! Because of some train issues, we didn't end up getting to Venice until 5 p.m. That's like 8 hours of travel...8 hours...but in the end it has been worth it. Venice looks and feels like the pictures you have seen. A city of small streets (alleys really), dead ends, canals and many pizzarias. Don't get your hopes up of a picture of Blake and Kristen riding a gondola down a Venice canal, gondola rides go for 80-120 euro for 30-60 minutes depending on the time of day and weather. For you true Americans that's 100-150 dollars. OUCH! We did however spend 12 euros on two enormous slices of pizza and a bottle of cheap red wine, took our impromptu picnic to the Rialto Bridge, sat down and had a picnic last night. No real drinking laws in Italy allow for drinking in public places. It was fun. I bet we looked interesting to those passing by.

Also during the day we made time to visit St. Mark's Square and fed the pigeons. The pigeons come from far and wide to eat feed that is sold in packs for a euro. The pigeons are fearless and will hop on your arm, your hand, your shoulder and even your head to get the feed from you. It's tons of fun and something most every tourist did. The Italians stayed away for fear of the bird flu!

After our picnic on the bridge, where we met a fellow Aggie, we went back to St. Mark's Square to listen to three dueling 5-piece orchestras. The crowds formed and really got into the music clapping and stomping with the music. We watched some older ladies dancing around doing high kicks. Bizarre, but a great time.

Florence had its gelaterias and leather while Venice has its pizzarias and it's glass shops. This morning we did a little shopping and actually went into St. Marks Cathedral. By this point we're almost a little churched-out but it wins my vote for prettiest cathedral. The inside is almost entirely gold mosaic. We also visited the Doge's Palace. It was AWESOME. I decided that I too would like a palace with carved gilded ceilings in every room. I told Blake to get working on that. We also saw the biggest oil paintng in the world... Paradiso.

Venice is beautiful and we wish we had more time, and weren't so worn, to see it correctly. We did see Hugh Grant though, for whatever that's worth!

We're headed back to Rome tonight for the end of our journey. Mom, I sent you an email but we'll just call you when we land. We don't exactly trust Continental to be on time!

CIAO from Venezia!

The Cinque

Very little time today! Cinque Terre actually has an internet spot!!! Amazing, but bad news is they charge by the minute! It looks exactly like the pictures! Beautiful tiny villages on the coast of the Mediterranean.

We started the day with a hike. YES WE HIKED!!! Across these scary scary mountain passes barely wide enough for two people and with no handrails, but the view was AMAZING! It was about a four mile hike in all and it pretty much wore us out. See Vernazza behind us from the trail leading to Corniglia.

Below is an example of the views you see from the trails high above the sea. Corniglia is in the background.

After our hike we put on our swimsuits and actually got into the Mediterranean. Ok, we just put our feet in, it was cold! That didn't stop the crazy Europeans in their white speedos from jumping on in.

After putting our feet in the ocean we hung out on the rocky beach and enjoyed the unbelievable weather.

We're headed to a late dinner and then some sipping of red wine from our room that faces the beach. We have a great view right in the middle of the hustle and bustle, if you can call it that...

Strangely, there are many more Americans here than anywhere else we've been. It is weird to hear English so much again!

We're off for a five hour train ride at 7 in the morning! Ah! So we'll be resting up tonight. See you tomorrow for our next to last post!

Ciao from Cinque Terre!

Heaven on Earth

So much to say, so little time. Greetings from Pisa! And yes, we just had pizza in Pisa. After two fun filled days in the Tuscan sun we have landed in town for a short stay before heading to Cinque Terre. More on the Tuscan sun later from Kristen. Pisa, unlike many of the places we have stopped, is not spectacular in any way. Sure, the leaning tower is here (and amazing I might add), but outside that it leaves much to be desired. We landed here around 6:30 p.m., took the famous "holding up the tower" pictures and plan on calling it an early night. But you can put another check on the life's list of things to do and see for us.

Mom, I know you're waiting for it, so HERE IT IS!!!

                                         

Tuscany, or where you can find me when I never show back up for work, is probably THE most beautiful place I've ever visited. WE started down the Chianti Road two days ago and it just got better and better the further we got in. Our first stop was the vineyard called Vignamaggio. Mona Lisa was born here and they filmed the movie Much Ado about Nothing in it's garden and villa. The views were BREATHTAKING. The pictures are NEVER going to be able to do it justice.

WE stopped and had a yummy typical Tuscan lunch in Greve, the tiny capitol of the region. Tomato soup and crostini. The Tuscan country was typically very poor, except for the rich rich lords who owned the vineyards so the food is very simple. It's probably the best we had eaten so far!!! WE followed the Chianti Road and it's brilliant views to Siena. We didn't have long to stay but got a feel for the walled city. It sits on three hills and is a bear to figure out. It feels almost like you're in a theme park! It still very much has a medieval feel. Everything is gray and hilly.

The ABSOLUTE highlight of the trip so far has got to be the Castle del Serre! We drove out to this little tiny town called Rapolna Della Serre. The castle sits at the TOP of the town, up a VERY steep incline. We were met at the castle gates by Salvatore and his son Antonio. Little did we know that we booked the castle on it's way to the top! Salvatore is basically a millionaire entrepreneur and this is his bachelor pad! He bought the castle for 1.8 million euros and has spent god knows how much updating it!!! We stayed in one of the five rooms that have been renovated. He took us on a personal tour of the rest of his castle that he still has to update. That's SIX STORIES of castle that will all be updated to it's 1500's glory. Did I mention that he also collects priceless antiques and the castle's going to be full of them. He's also built a modern bar complete with glowing embers to resemble the burning embers that used to be the castle's defense, a wine tasting room built out of a WW2 bomb shelter, and a castle top swimming pool and bar. This place is AMAZING and Salvatore made the experience wonderful! He loved Blake and kept calling him his Texan friend without the Stetson hat.

Salvatore made a fortune in the restaurant business in San Diego. He evidently has a place named Salvatore's still there. We're going to google him and see how famous he REALLY is. We also had the BEST dinner at an old farmhouse. We had the place all to ourselves and the dinner included champagne cocktails, filet for both of us and creme brulee with fresh blueberry gelato for dessert. All this for the price of crappy pizza in Rome. Let's just say that we were happy and relaxed enough when we left the castle to just call it a trip right then. You guys DEFINITELY need to come when you visit Italy next year. He's opening up some amazing suites in September.

After waking up to an early breakfast this morning we hit the ground running again making a trip to San Gima...Gima...GimaBuBu as Kristen calls it. Really the name is hard to say. They call it the Manhattan of Tuscany. This medieval walled city at one time had 72 towers with guards on patrol. These days that number has been reduced to 13 but it is still an impressive sight from far away.

Leaving San G. we took the scenic route towards Lucca and Pisa. It was a drive filled with small towns a plenty where the streets were only wide enough for one of the two lanes of traffic. A definite driving adventure. We stopped in Lucca (see the picture below), a city surrounded by 40' walls to ward off attacking herds. The walls are still intact today, all four miles around the perimeter. People come from far and wide to ride bikes and walk the walls. This is a picture of me with the Lucca Lion high above the city walls.

Of course, after Lucca we arrived in Pisa. We look forward to our next adventure on the Italian Riviera. Glad we can take you guys along with us. Finding an internet site in C.T. may be difficult tomorrow, but we will definitely be back in Venice. CIAO FROM PISA!!!