Lakes, Sea Sides, and the Vadican

Day 44: May 7th, 2014: 

The hills of Rome

 

Today was a relaxing day. We spent it mostly in the prone position. The difference is that unlike our lazy days in Formicola we had beautiful scenery to look at. Our first stop was at an overlook of one of the cities outside of Rome. It is a beautiful bluff that drop off quite quickly and the whole valley is available for your viewing pleasure. It is so green and peaceful, and we enjoyed the hour or so that we spent just relaxing and soaking in the beautiful scenery and weather.

Next we headed off to a caldera. The volcano erupted 5000 years ago and has since filled with water. It periodically releases some sulphur and carbon dioxide gasses. A couple times in the last 15 years the CO₂ has built up in the surrounding areas and killed off some cattle and sheep. 23 cows in 1999 and 8 sheep in 2002. They say that there is a magma chamber building about 6km below the surface so maybe in 100 years it will bow its top. Who knows. We sat on the shore and played Scopa for a few hours and then we were greeted with a little private air show.  Here's the video:

 

After that the plane made another pass and touched down on the water and dumped the load of water it had picked up on the previous landing. It then took off and was never seen again. I guess the training mission was a success.

 

We then headed home for the day to enjoy some more good food and to play Risk again. Jeff won. He was pretty proud of that, other than the fact that his mission was to wipe Amber off the map. I don't know what that says about the relationship or the future. Hopefully all good things. . .

We also learned how to play an Italian (Naples) card game, Scopa! We eneded up buying it!

Day 45: March 8th, 2014: 

The beach!

 

Today was the beach day. When we left on the trip we didn't know if there was going to be any beach time, but we were pleasantly surprised when  we found out that we were in fact going to be headed to the beach. It was about an hour and a half drive from Francessca's house, so about 30 miles on winding Italian roads. We have firmly come to believe that Rome has a law against straight roads with no potholes. After the thrilling and daring car ride we safely parked the car and found ourselves a little spot of sand and stayed there for many hours. Well Carlo, Francessca, and Angela stayed mostly put. Jeff on the other hand had to build a sandcastle, and Amber had to watch. I guess some people never grow up. I think it has become a Shirts Family tradition to build large imposing castles on all the beaches we visit. There could definitely be worse things.

 People even stop to watch here in Italy

  

And of course Jeff had to watch it slowly get destroyed by the incoming tide. The problem was that the tide came in REALLY slowly.

This meant Jeff got impatient and tried to speed up the process by weakening the outer defensive wall. This did cause some minor damage, mostly a turret on the inner wall, but about 4 hours later the castle was nothing more than a little mound as we headed out to get some Gelato and head home.

 

Day 46: March 9th, 2014: 

Vatican!!

 

Today we headed back to Rome to see the Vatican side of things. We first started with the Vatican Museum. Again this little lucky baby proved even more valuable. We were able to skip the hour + line and waltz right on inside without any reservations or tickets from the overpriced tour guides stalking the lines. Inside we saw lots more old marble things and colored chemicals plastered on stretched cotton, but the best part was the colorful chemicals that were put on the ceiling of one of the large rooms. Needless to say the Sistine Chapel was beautiful and inspiring. What was NOT inspiring were the pushy guards who were constantly telling people to move through the crowed room, coming over the loudspeaker to tell everybody to be quite in 5 languages, and yelling at everybody trying to take pictures. That was more comical than inspiring. Why is it that when there are myriad signs telling people to be quite and respectful and to not take pictures, whatever the potentially capitalistic reasons, do people do those things. I will never understand. It is just as easy to be quite for 5 minutes and soak in the masterpiece rather than talk about it and try to take pictures that you will eventually be caught taking and then forced to delete. Ah. Humanity at its finest.

 The Borgia Apartments 

We then headed out to a sandwich shop close by for a delicious bite to eat and then headed over to St. Peter's Square.

It was a amazing to see the two massive colonnades that wrapped around the courtyard and the basilica at the end. We didn't get to go in, but it was beautiful to see. And hey! We get to add another country to our list. We have now visited the world's smallest country! 40 hectares and 800 people with the Pope as the sovereign ruler, all nestled in the middle of Rome. That's what you get when the Pope feels like a prisoner after Rome was conquered many years ago, and finally convinced the Italian government to  make it an independent state with it's own military, the Swiss guard, and mint. I don't know if they minted their own currency before, but now they mint the Euro. Kind of anticlimactic if you ask me.