Prior Updates: Italy

The running posts are so long, I decided to break them up by country, so the most recent posts will be in the "Updates" tab, but once I finish a country, I'll move it to "Old Updates - XYZ Country).

The Journey Begins

I've had a bunch of people ask where we are going and some even pulling out a map to see exactly where we will be so I had the wonderful people at Midnight Media Group put together some animation to show everyone. And yes, this is an homage to a great adventure, largely because I've been told so many times that I look like Harrison Ford. Or was it Chevy Chase...

Click here to jump to:

DAY 1

The thing that no one ever tells you about taking a 10 month trip around the world is that life doesn’t stop so you have time to prepare for the trip. So instead of having a 10 month trip planned in detail before we left, we have about 6 months of the trip pretty much planned, and 4 months still to plan. And the definition of “pretty much planned” varies from country to country, and I get a sense we will get the true measure of our family as travelers when we run into a part that should have been more planned than it was.

Another aspect of life not stopping, is that our house is more clean than it usually is as we leave for the trip, but still nowhere near as clean as it should be for our house/cat sitter. It is a strange mix of rooms that are generally ready for a long-term guest, and rooms where someone would walk in thinking that a 4 year old or teenager is about to return any minute. So for that, we apologize to Becca, and know that you will have some significant leeway when you leave and we return before we have room to criticize.

We were only allowed (by Megan) 1 bag that could fit in an overhead and 1 carry-on. We are fully prepared for some airlines to tell us that this is still too much stuff. This was a feat that seemed impossible at the time, but clearly was the right answer.

That said, we were all as packed as we were going to be, by 2 and ready for our friend to drive us to the airport. With our bags packed to the gills with clothes, toiletries, medications and electronics, the potential for nightmare TSA experience loomed large but only one of our bags got flagged (mine), and we got through with minimal delay (Keira’s instagram post includes a video of me waiting for my bag).

I fly a lot and often get upgraded, so we were crossing our fingers as we approached the gate, but no such luck (at least we had economy plus which offered a little more legroom than general economy but has more or less the same 3 degrees of recline that a normal seat has. It was a test run to see if we could survive taking 8 hour plus overnight flights across the world in economy seating. And in general, we failed that test. Surprisingly, it wasn’t really the leg room (even with Megan reclined in front of me, I had enough leg room), but more width. Liam lay down on the seat resting his head on my lap and periodically kicking Elenna, ensuring that neither of us got much sleep.

Not pictured here is Elenna (offstage to the left) being kicked by Liam.

So we landed in Rome a bit groggy, and since we weren’t sure about the immigration procedures, we had built in 5 hours to get through customs, get some food and get to our gate. Customs was a breeze, as they saw us pushing a stroller and waved us to a separate line with no wait (Europe seems much more accommodating to kids than the US). Because we were so early, our flight wasn’t on the board and there was some confusion about where we were supposed to be (The A Gates, the E Gates or another terminal entirely), but I confidently guided us to the A Gates, because that is where the other flights on ITA to Palermo were (all the while praying I wasn’t wrong). We technically didn’t have boarding passes yet, and only got in the customs line after I showed them my receipt for our tickets. But I was able to download the ITA app and get our tickets pretty easily. The boarding passes didn’t have the gate either, but at least they said Terminal A and I was able to breathe easier.

We found a restaurant where we could sit, since we now had 4 hours to kill and were given QR codes to a menu that only had lunch food. Just as I was starting to get excited about having pizza for breakfast, our waitress informed us it was still the breakfast menu and rattled off 4 things rapid fire. Although the food wasn’t great, it was now, officially, the best meal we had had on our trip.

With 2.5 more hours to kill, and very little seating in the terminal, Megan found a play area on the map and we headed over there. “Play area” was a bit of a stretch, and my guess is that it really was meant for children 1-4 but there was also a giant chess board that entertained Liam for a while. It also had huge amount of seating (in stark contrast to the rest of the terminal), and the rest of us who weren’t playing chess with Liam were able to sit and recharge our figurative and literal batteries.

Liam was surprisingly good at chess and enjoyed the play area more than I would have thought.

The flight to Palermo was on a smaller plane with less legroom (I’m 6’4, so you might hear more about legroom than you care to hear about). On a 1 hour flight, it wasn’t a problem, but I immediately started to get concerned again about what a redeye flight on a foreign airline might be like. The good news was that they didn’t gate check strollers (would have had to pick it up at the baggage carousel), but after a little bit of a language barrier, the gate person told me the flight was “the opposite of full” and the stroller could probably fit in the overhead. I’m always so impressed when we travel somewhere and most people speak at least a little English, and I mentally filed away that wording for when we are in South America and I’m trying to explain something in my broken Spanish.

Now as far as Sicily itself, I didn’t know what to expect, which is obviously embarrassing to admit since coming here was my idea. But I certainly wasn’t expecting 95 degrees, an airport on the water, vegetation that included palm trees and mountains that looked to me more like a Caribbean island than part of Europe. My family didn’t quite get the same Caribbean vibe (but maybe that was because they were all asleep by the time the “Jamming” by Bob Marley came on the radio - the second song played in our car from the airport to our AirBNB). But I stand by the fact that we at least could have been in Panama.

"Jamming" was less dissonant than I would have thought in Cefalu.

The AirBNB host arranged a car to pick us up in Palermo and take us to Cefalu, and the giant van had plenty of room for us, but I was already mentally sizing up the types of vehicles we would be needing on this trip with 6 suitcases, 6 backpacks, a stroller and 6 people. The car ride was largely uneventful, in part because everyone but me fell asleep, which is probably a good thing as Megan didn’t see our car (or the cars around it), drive through the streets with only a vague respect for lane lines or blinkers. I was already congratulating myself on not renting a car.

We planned to stay in Cefalu vs Palermo (which I likely would have chosen since I had heard of it), largely because Megan got the recommendation on a message board. As we drove through Palermo and then reached Cefalu, I realized that we made the right decision. I’m sure that Palermo has some neat spots, but we didn’t see any of them on the drive, while Cefalu is a nice little town with lots of restaurants and nightlife without feeling like we were overwhelmed by it. Our place itself has a great location, with only a parking lot between us and the beach, and the old town only a 10 minute walk away. The inside of the apartment is best described “European” with a dated kitchen and beds that aren’t all that comfortable. After about 10 minutes, Lily was already asking us if the other places we would be staying were going to be as small (yes). But as far as Megan and I were concerned, it had everything we could want, and the location itself couldn’t have been better.

Our first order of business was getting food, since it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since the airport breakfast. As we stepped out of the hotel, it promptly starting raining so we stopped in the first restaurant we saw, which it turns out was a mistake. My family agreed that the pizza was above average, but I was the lone dissent - crust was good but that was about it. The two pasta dishes and the risotto were too bland - and given that bland is one of our family’s favorite flavors, that is saying something. I’d give it a 5 out of 10, maybe a 7 is you are just getting pizza. That said, it quickly (by default) became the best restaurant we had eaten at on our trip.

As we prepared for this trip, I thought about whether there were things that I could do in each country and compare it to the US. I don’t like beer, but if I did, I could see trying various beers from around the world and ranking them. Maybe pizza? Bread? Or maybe an experience? If you have any ideas on what I should compare, please send them to me.

So as we went to the grocery store, I was secretly excited. This was something I could compare. The place we went “Deco”, seemed a bit like a Whole Foods - clean, well lit, areas where you could get meats and dairy, and a section with “gluten free” foods. It also sold alcohol, but with no Captain Morgan to be found, the alcohol section clearly fell short of expectations. As one might expect, portion sizes were smaller than the US - no “Party Size” bags of chips, and bottles of soda came in packs of 4 instead of 6. Meanwhile, there were no signs above each aisle listing what you would find in that aisle, so we had to go up and down each aisle to find what we were looking for. But besides that, it was largely a pretty “American” shopping experience, except that we found out, after already starting to check out, that we had to weigh our produce and get prices there, instead of at the checkout. The produce pricing section was actually pretty user friendly, even for someone who didn’t speak Italian, as each type of fruit had a number by it, and you punched that number into the screen and then the name of the fruit and its picture showed up so you know you got the right thing. Then you hit a button and a sticker printed out with a barcode that could be scanned at checkout. And yes, I fully believe that these are the types of tidbits of information that are going to keep you tuning in to my posts!

From there we got some gelato and walked through the old town for a little bit.

If I was including the gelato place as a restaurant, it quickly (by default) would have become the best restaurant on our trip.

Back at our apartment, Megan and I had a Lemoncello spritz from ingredients we bought at the grocery store and I quickly started to fade. It was 26 hours after we had left our house, flying 4,546 miles (2 flights), and driving another 92 miles (2 cars). I was the first one asleep, probably by around 10pm. But I was also the first one to wake up, 13.5 hours later, and probably would have slept longer, except that the doorbell rang.

DAY 3

So what happened to Day 2? Day 2 we largely went to the beach, as Lily and to a lesser extent Elenna got into their home schooling routine and stayed in the apartment. We started getting into our daily routine and I’ll give an update on what that means in the next post.

But Day 3 is important because it is Megan and my 21 year anniversary. So like most people, we decided to go to a waterpark to celebrate.

Like most people, we celebrated our anniversary at a water park.. Liam was very excited about our anniversary.

Well, the real reason is that it was going to close for the season in a couple of days and the weather looked the best on Day 3. Its a pretty small water park and we knew that going in, but since the price was reasonable (16 euros/adult) it felt like a good value. Two main splash areas/small water slides for little kids that our 4 year old loved.

Liam loved the splash area and small slides.

There were 3 large tube waterslides that my teenagers all liked (one of which was too scary for everyone but my oldest and me to do). It was a slide that went down a steep slide, up a ramp, and then when you reached the top, you went backwards down again, then over a hill and to a stop. To make it all work, you had to trust that the first drop would put you out at a slight angle so you wouldn’t slide back down into the divider wall. But isn’t Italy famous for acquaducts and such? So what could go wrong.

Well, the first thing that could go wrong would be that we go up the ramp and fly right off, and as I pushed our tube down from the launch area, I started wondering how much Keira and I weigh and if any other tubes weighed that much, or if we were the first. We shot down the slide and up the other side. And didn’t slow down. As we started to reach the top of the ramp, I yelled out “Holy…” trying to keep the swear inside, I managed to scream “Moley!” as we finally slowed and our feet were about 2 feet from the edge and we were now about to go back down. From here, I had a Land of Make Believe flashback from a similar slide where we didn’t have the right angle and my back slammed into the divider and I couldn’t raise my shoulder for 3 months.

We traversed that angle without issue, and luckily, Keira warned me that she had been watching the ride earlier in the day and the hill part we were now about to go over had caused a few people to fall out of the tube. So we held on extra tight and STILL almost got thrown out of the tube. We then landed safely in the splash zone. About 48 hours later our heart beats slowed back down to normal - and this is really why water parks are the best parks - there is a real concern that you might die at any moment. Of course, as we were leaving th park, an ambulance showed up, and a woman was brought onto the ambulance, after apparently smashing her head. So maybe it isn't great that you can almost die at a waterpark.

Liam really like the park and we eventually got him to go on a medium slide. In typical kid fashion, after cajoling him and him putting up a fight for 30 minutes, once he finally did it, he demanded to do it 10 more times in a row.

We soon regretted getting Liam to go on this slide.

Two things that I would call out from this water park experience - the most random thing was that they made us all wear swimming caps when we went in the pool, for reasons that still aren’t clear. But, this virtually ensured that the only pictures I am allowed to post are of me and Liam.

Here's me rocking the swim cap. Keira grudgingly agreed to be pictured, knowing that few people will actually read this blog.

The second thing that we found strange was the food. The food was actually pretty standard water park fare, and I actually thought that the pizza there was better than the place we had it the first night (although I was in the minority). But just like I want to see how everyday things are a little different in other countries, our kids are obsessed with seeing how other countries view American food. So just like you might go into a random Italian restaurant in the US, they want to find a random American restaurant in Italy or Istanbul and see what the food is like there (not a chain like McDonalds, but a standalone restaurant).

So when Elenna saw an “American Pizza” on the menu, she quickly ordered it, interested to see how it would turn out. When it came out as a cheese pizza covered in french fries, my family laughed, but I just looked at it and thought, “Yup, sounds about right.”

What's more American than French fries?

If getting there is half the fun, getting home is basically 0% of the fun, especially in this case. Catching an Uber in town was quick, but no one was willing to pick us up and bring us back (I speculated that no one wanted to pick up people in wet bathing suits and ruin their car - and the Ubers in Cefalu are all black mercedes type cars). We tried hailing an Uber for an hour to no avail, and asked the person at the park to call us a taxi, but the taxi company didn’t answer. We then tried to get on the bus that the park advertised would bring us back to town. We were there with another couple looking to get to town and the bus drove right by us and didn’t even slow down. So eventually, the water park people got through to the taxi people and got us a taxi. 2.5 hours after we tried to leave, we got home.

But then Megan and I were able to go out and celebrate our anniversary in a more grown up setting. We went to Le Terme, and in general we were happy with this choice. The atmosphere was fantastic - outdoor seating, right over the water with a great view of the old seawall and light reflecting off of the calm water. Service also was good. So overall, the perfect setting for a date night. The one problem was that the food was actually subpar, and I tend to find that the food is a key part of the restaurant experience. But Megan suggested that we drink a bottle of prosecco (the type of “champagne” we had at our wedding), and it was too romantic a suggestion to pass up. Suddenly, the food didn’t matter and we had a wonderful evening, in celebration of 21 years of marriage to the love of my life.

Here's to 21 of marriage to an amazing woman!

We then walked through the old town for a while and ended up at a gelateria, where the food always hits the mark.

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DAY 5

So what does our normal routine look like? For the most part it involves getting up at 11am, and then I wake up at least half (and usually all) of my kids. I justify this by thinking that this is really 5am ET. From there we eat lunch and do what I find to be a most peculiar thing - we work out. Our kids actually suggested that we get exercise - I think it was Keira who first brought it up, and Lily quickly agreed, and Elenna was surprisingly on board. As parents, who were we to say no? So I taught them all the workout I do (which is just pushups and a series of ab exercises), so just imagine having a whole family of people as fit as I am! Actually, they are taking it to another level, with Keira finding a Just Dance workout online that we all tried (I bowed out about half way through as my knees started to hurt, and I realized that I still have 10 months of touring ahead of me). I’d be surprised if this is something we are still doing on Day 30, but I’m also surprised that its something we are doing on Day 5, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Liam hasn't quite gotten jumped on board the exercise train, but will periodically do 2 sit ups and then tell us the work out is easy and then stop.

Then we head to the beach. The beach has an area where you can rent an umbrella and two chairs, and a public area where you can sit for free. We ultimately decided it would be better/more cost effective to buy a few umbrellas and chairs and bring it down ourselves since we only live a block from the beach and lugging the gear isn’t too hard.

The first few days we stayed there, the water was completely calm, more like a bay than an ocean - some of the most clear water we have ever seen. But it was perfect for Liam, who swam for hours.

Liam has gotten plenty of time to train to be a Hatchling on next year's swim team.

But it was a little boring for Elenna, which led to us adding Cookie Dough, an inflatable unicorn to our gear. As any parent could have foreseen, Cookie Dough is a bit cumbersome, and her treks to the beach have become more and more rare.

Elenna, Liam and a rare sighting of Cookie Dough.

This has led to an interesting situation that Megan and I didn’t anticipate. We figured that renting a place on the beach would give us something to do and entertain the rest of the family while Elenna and Lily did their school work. Megan and I could sit on the beach for hours straight, for weeks on end without getting bored as long as there was a book available (and ideally, drinks nearby). But our older kids don’t have quite the same enthusiasm for the beach, so we were surprised to find that we had to do a certain amount of dragging our kids to a beautiful beach with clear water.

And when I say beautiful beach, I don’t even think that the sand and crystal clear water is even the best part of the location. For me, it is the old town and looming cliff in the background, that make you just stop and appreciate that you are somewhere special. There will be times where I’m playing tag with Liam in the water, and then I change direction and look back at him and am struck by the backdrop. Unfortunately, the effect is something that I haven’t been able to capture on film. Every time I use my phone, I take a picture of Liam 500 yards away from the Old town, and then I raise my camera, and he suddenly looks 1,500 yards away. I guess I’ll just have to remember it the old fashioned way…

This might be how far away Old Town looks on camera, but Kevin's memory will always be a better representation.

The upside of our kids not loving being at the beach is that, since we only have one shower, we need to go home in stages, and usually someone is happy to go back and get Liam showered while Megan and I try to squeeze as much time reading on the beach as possible.

On a 10 month trip, it would become prohibitively expensive to eat out every night (not just the cost of the food, but the fact that we would have to buy larger and larger sized clothing at every stop as our waistlines expanded). As a result, we alternated cooking in and eating out. It felt a little bit anathema to me to be in Italy and cook pasta (even if fresh pasta) at home with sauce from a jar, but fresh bread always adds a little something.

After dinner, we would usually try to do something together, like watch a movie or play a game. Elenna’s home schooling class has some suggested movies to watch that go along with her social studies/geography work, and since we are going to Rome and it was on her list, we watched Roman Holiday. The movies was about as good as a 70-year old movie could be for people today (which is to say dated and slow). And we learned about as much about Italy as we did watching the Italian Job (Mark Walhberg version) a couple of nights later, but Keira got a lot more sleep during Roman Holiday.

Or sometimes we would play games - Keira is always up for a game of cards and so, apparently, is Liam. It is a McKay family tradition to play games around the dinner table whenever we are in Cape Cod, and Meg’s Dad always welcomed our kids to the table, even if we just sat down to play a more complicated grown up game. So this meant playing Go Fish for the first hour or so, before the grandkids went to bed and we could play more exciting games with just the grown ups. So when Meg, Keira and I sat down to play “Rummy 500 by Ones”, Liam excitedly ran over to join and we couldn’t refuse a few hands of Go Fish and Old Maid (or “Old Man” as Liam called it) before letting him trot off to watch his ipad.

Or sometimes Megan and I would just go out for a walk to get some exercise or explore the town. Although everyone was invited, we never got any takers, so it was a chance for some alone time. Sometimes we would just walk, other times we would stop somewhere for a drink. And sometimes, we would adventure somewhere Megan was afraid we would be murdered. But so far we haven’t been murdered even once (knock on wood). And now that we have worked out twice, who would pick a fight with us?

Megan may have feared for her life so much as we walked up this poorly lit mountain trail, that she sent Keira a picture of the trail so the police could find our bodies when we didn't return. But if we didn't go on that hike, we never would have gotten this grainy picture!

DAY 7

The weather started getting a little stormier and windier, and we would often have a brief rain shower at some point during the day. As a result, our calm and serene beach got a bit wavier and more difficult for Liam to swim in. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to go in.

Liam needed some help getting over the waves.

It also opened up the opportunity for wave tag.

We continued our practice of going out every other night to a restaurant and started to find some good places to eat. We love eating outside and there are no shortages of choices. Meanwhile, the drinking age in Italy only being 18, Keira has dipped her toe into the drinking world, and generally orders whatever Megan orders (Aperol Spritz for the most part).

Aperol Spritz has been the drink of the trip so far for the girls. Meanwhile, a little behind the scenes moment as Keira and Lily discuss how best to frame the drink for a picture on Keira's instagram account.

I’ve been ordering random drinks off the menu, only to be reminded that I really only like rum and Coke. With no Captain Morgan here, Malibu and Coke Zero has become the drink of choice (or at least the drink of default).

We periodically would go into the city to get gelato as an after dinner snack, which gave us adults a chance to sneak in some exercise and the kids a chance to eat gelato. These walks led to various good picture spots.

The search for gelato meant that my family got to see a lot of cool things they wouldn't have otherwise. It also meant that our kids didn't stay inside all day.

Megan and my downtime is filled with the logistics of continuing to plan the trip, as we try to iron out the details of our New Zealand and India stops. This trip planning also included staying up until 1:30AM applying for Tanzanian visas, a nearly 3-hour experience that required me to use two different devices and 3 different web browsers to complete, given issues one would have with uploading pictures, but not have with making the payments and vice versa. Amazingly, our credit card has only been flagged for fraud once so far on this trip - on a night when we had dinner in Cefalu, had 6 separate charges for Tanzanian visas (each application had to be separate), and paid off the balance of our Kenyan Safari tab.

The good news was that Megan was staying up while I did this, so we were still awake at 2am when Liam threw up in the hallway. Meg and I quickly jumped into action and just as quickly realized that the apartment did not have the cleaning supplies necessary to deal with the issue. I’ll spare you the details (and the photos), but we got everything cleaned up (including Liam). For the record, I didn’t take any pictures, because although memorable, I’m not sure its something I want to remember vividly. But with that out of the way, I’m sure there will be no more medical issues to deal with, right? …right?

Meanwhile, with our kids apparently bored by going to the beach every day, we decided to book some excursions around Sicily, but given Lily’s school schedule, it meant only being able to go places on Saturday and Sunday. This resulted in me spending an hour looking at tours only to have Megan ask if driving on our own would be cheaper (yes, much so). So then I finally found a place that was within walking distance of our apartment and would rent us a car that seats 6, by calling and talking to a woman who spoke limited English. I felt like this reservation was something I would likely need to complete in person to make sure there was no misunderstanding, so I was about to walk over there when Megan pointed out that we probably should make sure that we can buy whatever tickets to the sites that we need in advance. This led to another hour of searching the right way to go about it.

The car rental place was two stores up on the right, which is a pretty cool place for a car rental place to be if you ask me.

I finally had it all lined up and walked over to the car rental place to rent the car when the woman at the counter mentions that the car is stick shift. Now, when Megan and I were dating, she taught me how to drive stick shift to the point where I could get around, but it was always a stressful drive and I did whatever I could to never come to a complete stop (which would require using the clutch again to go back into drive). Although to be fair, I don’t like using the brakes when I drive an automatic car either. But this story (and the length of time it took to plan 2 days, and numerous steps to go through) not only sums up why Megan is the one who should do the planning, but it also sums up why she is tired of doing all the planning.

The woman behind the counter clearly saw the terror in my eyes on hearing that the car is manual, and she asks if I can drive stick. I tell her that I can, but she probably doesn’t want me to if she values the car. However, my wife can drive manual. The question was going to be, would she want to? So I called her and Megan said that she would drive, even after I pointed out that we would be doing a trip on Saturday and another on Sunday, each of which would require a 2 hour drive each way. She agreed, as long as I supply her the requisite amount of diet cokes. So, I told the woman we would rent the car, and although she looked at me skeptically, she grudgingly filled out the forms. It was at this point I started to wonder if Megan reads my blog, and remembers my description of Italian driving…

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DAY 11

This was our first excursion since getting to Cefalu, and we decided to largely do it on our own. The plan was to go to Mt Etna, and then my plan was to go to Taormina afterwards, since that is what most of the day trips from Cefalu did (hit them both in one day). All the reviews of those tours said that it was a little jammed from a time perspective, but I figured since we were driving, we would have a little more control. The one issue was that the car rental place didn’t open until 9:30am, so we were going to start the day a little late, for a trip that was going to take 2hrs and 45 minutes just to get to the first stop.

The weather channel app said that the temperature would be 80 degrees, but the tickets I bought for Mt Etna said to bring a windbreaker, so we did. I was a little worried about the car rental place actually having the car ready at 9:30, since the last gondola went up the mountain at 2pm. The fact that the car showed up around 9:45, wasn’t too bad, and we were on our way by 9:55. Megan was a little rusty driving stick shift for the first time in 10 years, particularly since the first few miles were through the downtown area of Cefalu where pedestrian traffic had as little care for their own safety as my experience with Italian drivers had, with people walking in the middle of the Street, sometimes directly towards the car. Needless to say that it wasn’t the ideal backdrop to get reacquainted with driving stick, much less with a car she had never driven. That said, she did a great job and got us through just fine.

Megan did a great job driving in a high degree of difficulty.

We had gotten up at 8am to get ready for this trip, the first time we were all awake before 11am so far, so needless to say that the kids all took a nap at some point on the way there (and back). However, the trip was 2 hours and 45 minutes, and we kind of forgot to pack anything for Liam to play with, so what was already a long drive felt a little longer (although all said, he was a champ). Meanwhile, we couldn’t figure out how to get google maps to display on the car display, so I had to give directions to Megan about where to turn and what exit to take - like it was the 1900s or something. Good preparation for the ancient things we would see later that day.

I wasn't foolish enough to try to post a picture of the older girls sleeping.

In general, there was a little trepidation about this excursion - from Megan because she had to drive stick, from Lily because she wasn’t a fan of volcanos (Liam also seemed unsure as to why we would go near hot lava), and me because I had bought the tickets, so if something went wrong, it would be my fault. But we got there with no problem, and started walking up to the Gondola. Given the time crunch, I bought some fresh bread at the supermarket, so we were all a little hungry, but somewhat placated by the fact that the bread tasted amazing. However, we quickly realized that it was colder than advertised, more like 65 degrees, and it was cloudy and misting - things that the weather channel failed to warn me about. And I say “warned me about”, because as the organizer, I was assigned the blame for the weather and our lack of preparation (and I guess that at least the second part of which is fair).

We boarded the gondola, which was great because it was small, and really only could fit the 6 of us, so we got our own private ride. It immediately reminded us of the Disney Skyliners at Hollywood Studios, putting us in a better mood (plus it was somewhat warmer than the surrounding air). The view of the valley below was beautiful, and the clouds started to part to improve the view and things seemed to be getting better.

Things were starting to look up as the clouds cleared.

But that was short lived, as about halfway up, we rose into the clouds, something that Elenna was initially excited about, because who wouldn’t want to be in a cloud? Lily noted that a castle in the clouds would be about the most magical thing you could think of. So we were somewhat excited to continue to climb. But then, we quickly started to see the downside as it got colder, wetter and the visibility dropped.

But soon we were up in the clouds, and my smile looks a little forced.

And then, the gondola stopped about halfway up the mountain and our little cabin was just swinging back and forth. The kids started debating how far up we were (since we were on a mountain, looking out one window, we were up 20 feet off of the ground, but out the other side, it looked more like 40ft) and if we could survive the drop. Megan quickly tried to change the subject, and being experts at the Disney Skyliner, we convinced ourselves that the stop was likely just to help someone with mobility issues onto or off of the gondola. And we kept telling ourselves that for about 3-4 minutes before we started to move again with a sudden jerk that both scared me more and made me feel better (at least we were moving) at the same time.

Just before we got onto the gondola, we were warned that the 4x4 for the top of the mountain wasn’t running, so we were just going to be on the gondola (2,600 meters up, instead of the full 2,900 meters). Lily immediately breathed a sigh of relief, as did Megan who started to worry about how we would get Liam buckled in. But I was a bit bummed, as it meant we likely wouldn’t get a good view of any lava.

But I needn’t have worried, since the fog would have virtually ensured that anyway. And it was even colder at 2,600 meters than it was at the parking lot. We went out and walked around for about 2 minutes before the lack of view and freezing cold forced us back inside. I asked Lily if she thought that a Gondola station in the clouds was at all magical, and she did not. Inside there was a place where you could rent socks, jackets, hats and scarves, which made me feel better that being unprepared for the cold weather wasn’t just a me thing if they made a business out of capitalizing on tourist stupidity, but seemed like too much trouble/cost to walk outside and still not see anything.

Back at the bottom, we had some hot chocolate and then had to plan where we were going next. The family largely felt defeated by the trip (got up early, a little hungry, almost 3 hours in the car to be cold and not really see anything), but I still wanted to go Taormina, and see the ancient Greek Theater. I looked to Megan, who as the only one who could drive stick held even more power in this decision than normal, as going to Taormina would add another 45 minutes to the drive, and after I showed her some pictures of the theater, she agreed that we would go on.

At this point, we decided that there would probably be better food in Taormina than the parking lot of Mt Etna, and that instead of having a snack there, we would likely try to find gelato near the theater. So we drove to town and immediately searched for food.

Taormina was beautiful, and I would highly recommend.

At this point, it was 3pm and everyone was a bit hangry, and in need of food. Keira and I found a place with 4.6 stars on google that was on the way from where we parked to the temple, and we wound our way through the old town to get there. I absolutely loved Taormina - The city streets looked like they were out of a movie, and it was right on a cliff by the ocean, so the views of the water were amazing whenever we got to a plaza. But everyone was too hungry to enjoy it, and when we got to the restaurant, it was more of a takeout place than a restaurant, so we decided to eat at the sit down restaurant across the street.

Unfortunately, we should have done a little research on that place first, because it wasn’t great. I thought it was fine, but everyone said said below average, and in retrospect, the fact that we were all starving, and the best review was fine, means that even that grade was inflated.

But at least we were fed and on our way to the temple. Our spirits were a little higher after food and walking through the cool streets, but the day was still somewhat of a bust. But when we got to the theater that all changed. As I’ve said before, I’m a huge fan of old things, and the Theater was built in 20 AD, about 2,000 years ago and it become the oldest thing we have seen on the trip so far, about 1,000 years older than the duomo in Cefalu. It was quite large and well preserved as we walked around, the thing that made it especially remarkable was the view. The location was up high on a little bit of a peninsula, giving almost 270 degree views of water from certain points. It was later in the day so the sun was perfect and the whole family came away impressed. To top it off, a jazz concert was taking place there later than night, and the orchestra was tuning up while we there, making it feel almost as magical as a castle in the clouds.

The theater was really cool, and the view was amazing.

After the theater, the next goal was to find gelato. Here, Megan’s philosophy is to find a place with a long line, because that is probably a good sign that its worth the wait. We had seen a place that might have fit the bill on the way down, but we were on the lookout on the way back. And good thing we were, because we ran into a long line outside of Don Peppinu. We waited on line and were well rewarded. Megan declared that the Nutella Crunch gelato was the best thing she had ever tasted in her life. Everyone in the family gave it a 5 out of 5. The bar for gelato is high, so for it to be the only place we’ve been to to get a 5 rating should say it all, but Keira summed it up best. She said that she really enjoyed seeing the Ancient Theater, but if she could only do one thing in Taormina, it would be Don Peppinu (and I think everyone but me likely would agree, but even for me, it would have been a close decision).

In a side by side comparison, there is no clear winner.

We got back to the car, and Megan was treated again with a drive through narrow streets full of pedestrian traffic with no regard for their own safety. Although she said that type of driving was her least favorite thing, things quickly got worst as it started to storm, and we spent most of the next 3 hours driving in the dark and the rain, and at one point after taking a wrong turn, we got off at small town where we added small streets and traffic to the mix. But we got home safe and sound and Megan won the MVP for the day, not only for driving, but for agreeing to go to Taormina, an experience that made the day an overall success.

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DAY 12

On Day 12 we were going to the Valley of the Temples, a place that my mom had recommended that we go. The kids asked how they should dress, and after the debacle the day earlier, I told them “low of 30 and high of 90” and “to dress accordingly”.

The good news was that we had a tour to explain what we were seeing, and since we rented a car, we were ready to go early in the morning to get there on time. The bad news was that on our drive home from Taormina, the car was making a high pitched sound, as if there was something wrong with our rear wheels. The thought of driving that car again for another 2 hours each way had kept Megan up all night, so we called the rental place to see if we could switch the cars. They were able to get us one in about an hour, but that meant that we would essentially have to hit no traffic at all to get there just as our tour was set to start.

The first car we had was a 7 seat Fiat, but this was essentially a passenger van. The woman at the rental agency met us at the train station with the car and as she watched Megan pull away, her concerns that we didn’t know how to drive stick resurfaced (its pretty common when first driving a new car to not be sure how much gas vs clutch you need and that makes the first time you move the car a bit jerky, particularly when that car is a large passenger van). Given that our last car apparently now has mechanical damage, the rental woman ran over and said that we shouldn’t drive the car. When we told her that we were fine, she begrudgingly let us leave with the van.

But now the race was on to get to the tour in time, but since Megan was driving a large passenger van, it wasn’t much of a race and soon we were going to arrive 5 minutes after the tour started. There was a long tunnel and from what we could tell from the signs, it was electronically monitored for speeding, and it was the one place in all of Italy where we found that everyone actually drove the speed limit - just what we needed. Then we got to a point where there was a lot of construction and the traffic pattern changed, and Google maps seemed to be taking us to the right, so I told Meg to turn, but that was no longer the correct move and we ended up getting off of the highway. We then had to turn around, go back through the slow tunnel, then turn around again and go back through the slow tunnel again to get back on track.

We enjoyed this tunnel so much that we decided to go through it 4 times.

But by now, we were 20 minutes late with no hope of getting there on time. When we got to the ticket place, we passed the parking lot and needed to turn around. Unfortunately, it was at this point that Megan realized that she didn’t know how to put the car into reverse. It was a 6 gear truck, and every time she tried to put the car into reverse it only went into first. She found an area where she thought she could do a u-turn but the van was so long that the turn was too tight, and now we were stuck, with no way to go in reverse. I offered to try to push the car, if Megan put it into reverse, but she figured that instead of me pushing the van (slightly up hill), the huge van would run me over (always a good sign when your wife doesn’t kill you when she has the chance). So we sat there for a minute and with Megan adamant that there must be some trick to putting it into reverse, we googled it, and there was a video that showed that you had to lift a hidden lever while putting it into reverse to make it work (not at all intuitive). How amazing is the internet? At ancient ruins in Sicily, you can find instructions (in English) on how to put a random passenger van into reverse. With that solved, we were on our way again to the parking lot.

We had missed the tour, so I asked the kids if they wanted to buy the audio guide, and they all said no. As we walked into the valley, I realized that I shouldn’t have let them decide and from now on, we were going to get a guide/tour wherever we go. Very little reason to drive that far, see some things and have no idea what they were.

As far as my kids know, this was built by some people, at some point in time, for some purpose.

The good news was that there were plaques, so Megan and I took turns reading them and summarizing the details for the rest of the family. In this way, we got a sense of area - a city built in 582 BC, with the temples build around 400 BC, by the Greeks. Later it was taken over by the Romans, with a little bit of Carthaginian ownership thrown in.This was now officially the oldest thing that we had seen on our trip.

The ruins were quite impressive, and the sky was so blue, it was the perfect contrast - almost as if the Greek gods were trying to help us make a brochure of the place.

The Valley was quite large - our tour was supposed to take 2 hours and I can really see how that would be the case. And although the kids were impressed by it, once again, the timing wasn’t great and although we brought more bread to snack on, we were all starving again half way through our trek. In general, we were a little skepitcal of places to eat that are actually in the tourist trap area, but we passed a couple of signs for restaurants and decided to stop at Casa Barbadoro which promised a “Shopping and food experience.” We didn’t do any shopping, but the food experience was quite good - solid pizza and pasta dishes, the view from the restaurant was great; a beautiful panoramic view of the valley all the way to the ocean (the temples are behind you, so not a view of that, but still beautiful). All in all, this “food experience” clearly exceeded expectations. Plus, one of the paths back to the temples takes you along the outside of the city wall which is a cool view of things we would have missed otherwise.

Liam was quick to point out that this statue was a man, I assume because he recognized my rock hard abs in this statue.

After not getting home until 10pm the night before, our family was excited to be getting home by 5pm. Megan parked the care at the train station, and she and the kids walked home while I waited for the rental woman to show up. Megan wanted to avoid a confrontation with the rental car woman, but I thought she should have stayed for a victory lap. All in all, she did a great job driving that giant van across Italy. That said, I also had some trepidation of the rental car woman's mood, but since this car was still in good shape, and I happily told her the car was perfect, she smiled and a potential conflict was averted. We cooked some dinner, played some cards and fell asleep after a great day.

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DAY 14

Liam’s Birthday! Megan and I put up some decorations the night before. We found a “Happy Birthday” banner in Italian (or at least that’s what we think it says).

If this doesn't say Happy Birthday, then don't tell us what it does say.

Liam turned 5 today and to celebrate we went to eat at an arancini restuarant that he rated a 1 million out of 10. From there, we went to a Granita place (kind of like a fruity Italian ice place.

Liam thought that the stretchy cheese made arancini a 1m out of 10..

Then we stopped at a candy store. It was just like in the United States, they charge about $10k per pound of candy and you have no idea how much candy you have bought until you get to the register.

Kevin wasn't sure if the prices of the candy or the potential for shark attacks was more scary.

After that, Lily went back to the apartment to take a chemistry test, but the rest of us went to a playground, with a bar right next to it. Seems like a genius idea that should be brought to the US. Just like the Twix vending machine I saw.

Two great ideas that should be brought back to America - playgrounds next to bars and Twix vending machines.

Then we went back to the room to open some presents. When you are trying to pack for 10 months into one suitcase and one backpack, there isn’t a lot of room for toys. So we packed Liam’s presents into his backpack. Transformers and hotwheels - doesn’t get much better than that.

We wanted to go back to Tivitti, but it was closed on Tuesdays, so we went back to the bakery where Lily loved the ice cream. The dessert there was excellent, so even though we had a birthday cake waiting at home, most of us had some gelato. Then we got home and had birthday cake. Lily wanted to make the cake and we weren’t 100% sure we were going to like the cake part - the box made it look like it was going to be more dense than the funfetti which is our go to. And we were 100% unsure if we were going to like the frosting, because they didn’t sell frosting and Lily had to make it from scratch. That usually isn’t a problem, except for 2 things: 1) the ingredients were all in Italian so we weren’t sure we were getting exactly what we needed, and 2) when we got to the apartment, we realized that there weren’t any measuring cups, so Lily had to eyeball everything. But the cake looked great and it tasted pretty good too. Liam liked it so much, he had the cake again for breakfast the next morning. And we let him, because, you know, 4th child…

Happy birthday buddy!

DAY 16

Our last day in Cefalu. We had been in town for 2 weeks, and almost since we got there, we said “We should climb that giant mountain in the backdrop of all of our pictures”. So we got up early (9am) on the last day and for some reason, no one wanted to join us, so Megan and I hiked up the mountain on our own.

The thing that drew us to the top was the potential for a great view, but also because there were clearly some ancient walls and buildings up on top to explore. For the most part, those fortifications were built for the townspeople to retreat to whenever some group came to raid the town. Which kind of puts whatever problems you have going on in your life into some amount of perspective.

Megan risking her life for a good picture means that she is officially a Fischbeck.

Most of the walls and such dated back to around 1,100AD, but like most ruins, they were built on older ruins, some dating back to BC. The hike itself was a workout, but certainly doable and a number of times I congratulated myself on not doing the workouts that my girls were doing, so I could save my knees for things like this.

Kevin is recreating his cool guy pose from his 5th grade year book, although not quite as cool.

We got back to the apartment and spent the rest of the day packing and doing laundry. Our apartment has a washer, but no dryer. I am the person who does the laundry in the house (although Lily does her own, after being fed up with how I can’t tell whose clothes are whose, which inevitably means that Keira and Elenna end up with her clothes in their drawers). So this meant that I had to reacquaint myself with the clothesline. I last dealt with this 21 years ago, almost to the day, on our honeymoon, when Megan and I backpacked for 3 months through Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Its not really hard to do, although planning your schedule around when its going to rain (a time which otherwise would usually be a great time to do laundry when you own a dryer) takes a little getting used to. In fact, this was an issue on our last day when it rained for part of the day and the clothes were finally dry just as we were ready to go. Plus, since our clothes line is on the side of our balcony and 40 feet above the ground, there is an element of danger that I don’t usually associate with drying clothes. So far, so good, but I’ll be curious as to what eats our socks if we don’t use a dryer.

As we tried to get from our AirBNB to the train station, once again, Uber let us down, and none were available. The second taxi company I called had a taxi and we were pleasantly surprised when it was a van that arrived and could take everyone and our luggage (we were prepared to just put our luggage into a smaller taxi and send it over with one or two people, while the rest of us walked).

Then we prepared for the next part of our adventure - an overnight train from Cefalu to Naples. We knew that we probably wouldn’t get the best night’s sleep, but Liam loves trains and we had never slept on an overnight train before. We rented two rooms with 3 bunk beds each. What was it like? Picture a cramped room on a train with 3 bunk beds and then picture it 50% smaller and there you have it. Then try to get 3 suitcases and 3 backpacks and 3 people into the room and that was the next 10 hours.

Megan had to use the wide angle to get everything into the shot, which I hope is why my forehead looks so big.

I slept in the top bunk and it was a little bit of an exercise in gymnastics/contorsionism to get myself up there and into the bed. And once I got in, I knew I wasn’t coming down until the next morning. The bed itself was about 8 inches shorter than it needed to be in order for me to lay out fully, which initially I attributed to the curved nature of the top of the train (where my feet were) but Megan and Keira both said that they couldn’t lie down straight either, so maybe it adjusted to the person and became too short for whoever lay down. Liam, however, had no complaints.

By the time we got into the girls room to take a picture, Keira was already asleep.

Since we were taking a train from Sicily to Naples, we assumed that there was a tunnel or a bridge to get us to the mainlain, but before we got on, Megan read that they actually would take the train cars apart into sections, put them onto a ferry and then when we got to the other side, put them back together and complete the journey. No one, except Liam, slept well, but since I hadn’t really slept well since getting to Sicily (our bed creaked, so every time Megan or I moved, I woke up), that didn’t bother me much. Meanwhile, given that a train normally rocks back and forth, and since I was in the top bunk there were about 2-3 times where it rocked so much that I was forcefully thrown to the side where the open space was. In both cases I was still a few inches from the side, so I was in no risk of actually falling out (and the straps that held up the bed would have stopped me anyway), but it was still a little disconcerting. The other thing that happened was that we must have been going up and down in elevation meaningfully because my ears were popping throughout the night. But my super power is being able to go to sleep wherever I am, and I quickly fell back into my restless sleep.

We managed to get off the train on time (which is no small feat with 6 people and all that luggage). Megan felt a little off after getting off the train, and felt like the world was moving (kind of like how you might feel after having been on a boat for a long time), which passed after about 3-4 hours. The rest of my family gave it a 3 out of 5, but I gave it a 3.5 out of 5. The train got us there on time, gave us 6 waters per room (I am a huge fan of “free” water - I will pay $100 per night more for a hotel that gives you free bottles of water). It also saved us the cost of a hotel. Liam meanwhile, gave it an enthusiastic 10 out of 10.

DAY 17

After a quick rest from our night train into Naples, we went to a pizza making class. The class was great - and the chef who walked us through the process (Amos) was really good with Liam.

Liam was very engaged in the pizza making. Elenna and I made the best dough of the group.

More importantly, the pizza was really good - certainly above average for the trip so far. This was likely in part because they didn’t let us use the dough that we made (technically, they said that the dough needed 24 hours to rise).

A little before and after of the pizza: pre-oven and post-oven. It only cooked for 90 seconds at 850 degrees. The pizza was definitely above average for what we had in Italy.

After the class we went back to the room and took a proper nap (the city is called Napoli after all) and only because I said we had to get up at 4pm and Meg set the alarm did we actually get up (I feared that if we slept any longer, we wouldn’t get back to sleep that night). Otherwise, I think my kids would still be sleeping.

Since I like old things, I found two things to see that would result in 29 minutes of walking if you included going to the restaurant after and then coming back to the hotel. It was a small amount of time that the kids could get behind, and I knew that it would take longer because we would likely stop for a little at the places. The second place was also close to the harbor and I hoped that there might be something there to see when we got there.

First we went to the Maschio Angiono (or the Castel Nuovo) which caught my eye because it was a real castle apparently right in the middle of Naples. It was built in 1266 AD and was the home of a number of kings. The outside sculptures and artwork, including the doors to the castle were amazing - it feels like nothing built today has that type of craftsmanship. Unfortunately, it was closed (to the delight of Elenna) so we moved on.

Elenna's smile is because she found out we only can see it from the outside and couldn't go in and walk around more.

The second place we went was Piazza de Plebescito, which was the big city square with a giant basilica on one end (the Church of San Francesco de Paola) and the Royal Palace on the other. The place was beautiful, but a bit of a mess, and it looked like a concert or something had ended there maybe 45 minutes earlier. My guess is that there was a large gathering there to celebrate the blood of San Genarro (when we checked into our hotel, the receptionist tried to explain the day and I just nodded politely, catching about 75% of it, and from what I caught, it sounded like Punxsatawny Phil but with dramatically higher stakes. So afterwards, I looked it up and apparently, according to the legend, San Genarro’s blood is kept in a vial and is dried, but every year on Sept 19, they look at it and if it liquifies, then its a good omen. If not, its a bad omen and things like Mt Vesuvius erupting happen. I’m not a big believer in these things. Besides, the last time it didn’t liquify, was 2020, but I can’t remember anything bad happening then…

Liam wants to be in pictures, but then quickly decides he won't smile.

With the square still kind of blocked off as they cleaned up after the event, I led us down towards the water. As we walked there I looked to my left and saw a lame carnival type place, and since I was pushing the stroller, I immediately saw the danger of continuing on our path. It was just the type of thing that would be like catnip to a newly minted 5 year old. But I pushed on nevertheless, and I could see Liam notice something, but the railing was alternating rock wall and columned wall that he could see through. Finally, he saw enough to ask to go, and we weren’t in a rush, so we walked over and stayed there for 20 minutes as he did a number of rides.

Didn't Liam look like he was about to fall asleep at the Piazza? Not at all 15 minutes later at the carnival..

After that, we went to dinner at a place Keira had found and then got some gelato. At this point, I was getting tired of gelato so I got some puff pastries that were delicious. The best thing about this place was that there was a picture of a little girl eating ice cream which is the same picture that is on the wall at Friendly’s (you can see the picture in the back of this picture from our last meal in the US - where else would we eat in our last US meal, particularly on Keira’s birthday?!

This picture in the Gelateria is the same one above Megan's head in Friendly's (although Friendly's added the red to her ice cream).

DAY 18

We were set to go to Pompei, and we were shooting to catch the the 8:41 AM train knowing there was a 9:16 as a fall back. We took the metro to the train station and raced to catch the train only to find the gates closed and the security at the boarding area only letting people through with tickets to certain trains. We showed them our tickets and they told us no, but for once, no one spoke English, so we weren’t sure what was going on, but it kind of sounded like the train was canceled. That would have been bad enough, but it was actually worse than that - a New Zealand tourist came up to us and said she found out there was a strike and a lot of trains were canceled.

So we went out to get a taxi to take us to Pompei when the New Zealand tourist said she was getting a bus. Since we would probably need two taxis at 90 euros each, the bus sounded good, so we bought round trip tickets only to get to the stop to see about 100 people waiting. At this point, I was ready to just find a taxi and head over - we were getting dangerously close to missing our tour. It turns out that not everyone was trying to get on the bus we were trying to catch and we were all able to get on. We pulled up in front of the ruins pretty much right at 10am.

We had a private tour with a woman who was very knowledgeable. She was also pretty good with Liam (a litmus test for me if you are good at your job since he’s very easy going, but he’s also 5, so can act like a 5 year old sometimes, particularly when he has been standing around for 2 hours. To be fair, I can sometimes act like a 5 year old after standing around for 2 hours too). To keep the kids engaged, she would ask questions and give out little prizes to whoever got it right, which was great, except they were little toys like a tic-tac-toe game or a rubix cube. Each time a prize was awarded, all I could think was “and where are we going to store that for the next 10 months??”

The city of Pompei was amazingly preserved, but not by the lava.

But the tour was interesting - amazing how well preserved some of those things were, all the way down to paintings on the walls. You hear about the preservation because of the volcano blast, and how some people died frozen in place, and you assume that lava was somehow involved, but our guide pointed out that if lava was involved, then everything would be one giant molten slab. Instead, the dust from the volcano fell and preserved things, and about 90% of the people in the town were able to flee, but some died from suffocation or heat either because they were too scared to leave, or too old or sick to leave.

Did you know that the Monkees were a big inspiration for Beatles?

We ate at a surprisingly good place right across the street from the entrance to the ruins. We were a little worried about there being enough space on the bus on the way back but we got back without incident. It took us about 15-20 minutes to confirm that our train to Rome was not going to be impacted by the strike and from there, we had to take the metro back from the train station to our hotel to pick up our bags and then take the metro back to the train station to catch the train.

Traveling with so many bags is a bit difficult, particularly given the number of stairs to the metro and then to the train station. It involved me carrying 2 suitcases and 2 backpacks and Megan carrying the stroller in addition to her suitcase and backpack. But we were able to get onto this train much more smoothly than we did the overnight train to Naples. We had a friend who told us that he wanted to meet us several months into the trip, because at that point we will be experts at packing and unpacking, and loading things onto public transportation. Although I still feel like that was an overly optimistic view of what our family will be capable of, I did start to feel a little more optimistic. The one caveat being that the zipper to Lily’s suitcase broke and it took Megan a couple of minutes of frantic repair work to get it back together, but now it seems that we have to get her a new suitcase.

The train to Rome was uneventful, but the taxi line was about 30 minutes long, and it looked like there wouldn’t be taxis that could fit as all, so we ordered an Uber that took about 15 minutes to get there. The train station was surrounded by traffic (likely because of the strike, more people were driving/taking taxis), and after about 15 minutes in the Uber, we realized that we had only taken two right turns and basically had done a U-turn, so that we were now on the other side of the train station, about 100 yards from where we got in the car. After we got a couple of blocks away from the train station, things got a bit clearer, but we barely made our dinner reservation, which at the time we booked it, looked like would have about 30 minutes to decompress at the hotel before having to get there.

Friends of ours had just been to Rome, and recommended a restaurant and gelato place - both of which were quite good. We got home and did a “quick” load of laundry (3 hour cycle for the wash!) and this time there was no clothes line, but rather a drying rack, that we set up in the kitchen. I joked with Megan that it might take a long time to do a load of laundry, but at least the washing machine was incredibly small (only fit about 8 pieces of clothing (including socks/underwear). Depending on the article of clothing, it could take a couple of days to dry.

DAY 19

Our first full day in Rome, we had a tour booked at 2:30 but wanted to hit the Da Vinci Museum first. Megan had warned me that the host said that there was a switch in the bathroom for warm water that you never wanted to turn off, but we neglected to see if it was in the right spot. By the time she had taken a shower the night before (after two of the other girls and a 3 hour load of laundry) she complained that the shower wasn’t as hot as it should have been, but we chalked that up the laundry going at the same time, because the water switch was pressed in the same way as the lights were pressed when they were “on”. But the next morning, I found out the hard way that it should have been in the other position.

We took an Uber to the museum (Uber appears much more reliable in Rome than in other parts of Italy). The Museum was great - especially for Liam. The first half was about Da Vinci’s inventions and there were recreations of many of them that were hands on, so Liam could play. Meanwhile, I got everyone audio guides this time, and the girls went through and listened to the whole thing - which impressed Megan and me a lot given it was a lot of looking at paintings. We later learned that they were in it for the scandal - when the Church didn’t like a painting, and made him paint a different version, or when he was painting someone else’s mistress. But at least they were entertained and learned something.

Liam tried to power the first prototype for the helicopter. In fact, all of the Liams liked the hands-on experience.

We ate lunch and then Ubered to our tour location which was next to a very fancy hotel, where the doorman opened our Uber door and talked to us as if we were guests. Our daughters thought that this was the funniest thing in the world, because we were actually there to do something that they thought was the opposite of classy - take a tour of Rome while in the side car of a Vespa. They were mortified at the thought of having 6 Vespas in a row with side cars and the stares we would get. They were only slightly less mortified when they realized that one person would be behind the driver, and the other would be in the side car, so there was only 4 Vespas (including the one that the tour guide and a random tourist were in).

We got to see a good amount of Rome on our Vespa tour.

The tour was great - you can go down side streets in a Vespa (even one with a sidecar) that would have been impossible in a van, or if possible, would have taken twice as long. We saw St Peter’s Basilica, the Coliseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and a number of other landmarks (including a Gelateria). We were given headsets where the tour guide could talk to us the whole time, even while in transit. It wasn’t perfect, sometimes it cut out, or the motors of the Vespas drowned out the words, but overall it worked pretty well.

Liam and Meg were the only ones who would let me include a pic of them in motion.

Despite the concerns that our daughters had that we would look silly in the vespas, we must have looked really cool because everyone we passed smiled and waved at us or took pictures.

Although they all said that they felt a bit silly in the moment, they all agreed that they had fun (as long as no photos leak).

When the tour ended, we decided to walk back to the hotel (30 minute walk), which the girls were against but generally took in stride (get it?). We tried to go to a recommended place but it wasn’t open yet so we went to a risotto restaurant, which was fine, but not a must try. On the way back to the hotel, the kids convinced us to stop at a lemon ice place that serves lemon gelato out of scooped out lemons (something they had seen on Tik Tok, and then they saw a place that did that on our first night as we walked to the hotel). That was pretty good if you like lemon flavored stuff and the novelty of eating out of a lemon.

Who doesn't want to eat out of a lemon?

DAY 20

After a full day the day before, we wanted to carve out some time for Lily and Elenna to do some school work, so we slept in the next morning and hung around the house until we went to the Capitoline Museum for the Percy Jackson tour. Despite having the whole morning, we somehow got a late start on the day and I went to a nearby restaurant to get some pizza and arancini which we at in the room. Then a quick workout and shower, and then we caught an Uber to the tour.

The tour guide was great, creating two teams with Percy Jackson trivia. It was kids vs adults, which was a little lopsided considering I probably listened to less than half of the books on audio tape, but really it was more about Roman history and Greek mythology. Before we got there, the kids were taking guesses on what percentage of the questions they would get right, and they thought that it would be less than half. Instead, they got all of them right except for one - even some deep cuts that the tour guide says that she rarely asks.

Liam is practicing for when he becomes Emperor of Rome and they build a giant statue of him

Needless to say, the kids destroyed the adults, but it was a good day nonetheless. We found out that Liam was quite competitive, even after the score started to become lopsided in the kid’s favor, he would continually ask for updates on the score.

From there, we walked to a gelateria. It had a huge line and we were advised that if we wanted to skip the line, we could get a table, so we did. The only drawback was that you had to order a large gelato, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

When in Rome, you eat giant ice creams.

From there, we walked home to get our steps in. Liam had done pretty well walking around the museum and then walking home with minimal carrying. In typical 5 year old style, he would run around in circles for 5 minutes and then ask you to carry him because he was so tired, only to run around again when you put him down.

DAY 21

We knew from the start that this would be a long day, in particular because we had decided it would be too difficult to take the stroller and Liam would have to walk the whole time. In the morning we went to a tour of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum on a group tour. Then in the afternoon we would tour Vatican City, or as Elenna called it the first couple of times she read the word “Vacation City.”

The Roman Forum was interesting, as a lot of the buildings had been buried for centuries and then only dug out in the past couple hundred years. Its kind of amazing to think that any part of a city could fall into disrepair, then be abandoned and over the centuries be flooded a number of times, with earth quakes and then just be forgotten about. But there you have it.

Who buries a whole part of a city, and how do you forget about it for centuries?

The Colosseum was very impressive. It could hold between 40-80k people - about the size of today’s stadiums but was built 2,000 years ago. Lily wanted to do a tour of the underground*, below the Colosseum, so we got to walk around and see the tunnel from a separate area that the gladiators and animals walked before being brought to the Colosseum. There was also a number of trap doors and elevators that were built into the building to bring up the combatants, and we saw a replica of a the pulley system they used to bring them up.

The Colosseum is impressive as long as you don't think about what the Romans watched for entertainment. Although apparently in the later years, the Gladiators were more like WWE wrestlers, and only about 5% of the time did anyone die.

* Lily has no recollection of requesting this, but did in fact want to go.

Although the morning was hectic, three straight weeks of not eating processed foods had me feeling younger, with the energy of people in their mid twenties.

Its amazing what a diet of unprocessed foods can do for you and making you feel young again.

At the end of the tour, the family was tired, so we Ubered over to the Vatican Museum and ate at a restaurant just outside. The biggest problem with going to the Vatican, is that I kind of forgot that Vatican City is its own country, which means that I had to update the front page of this website to 17 countries.

We met up with the same tour guide who did the Percy Jackson tour and she took us through the Vatican. Similar to the prior tour, she made it a contest (kids vs adults) and I felt like I was going to win this one, since I’m the only one who had any familiarity with this book, but once again the kids prevailed.

Liam had a long day, and the tapestries weren't holding his interest.

The museum was beautify, with nearly every part of every wall or ceiling covered in some sort of artwork. The highlight of the tour is supposed to be the Sistine Chapel, but I was more blown away by the hall of maps - just the architecture of the hall itself.

Look at the ceiling of the Hall of Maps. Oh, yeah, Keira is there too. And our guide.

After we went through the Sistine Chapel (no pictures allowed), we went to St Peter’s Basillica, the largest church in the world. There is a tendency to say something like “If you’ve seen one European Church, you’ve seen them all.” And to some degree that is true - probably for about 98% of the major churches in a city. However, there is nothing as mindblowing as this one. It is huge, it is incredibly ornate. Lily at one point said, “If I didn’t know anything and walked into this building in the 1,700’s I might just believe in God”. I agree - it just seems so beyond the scope of what Man might be able to build.

Liam was taking in the ceiling of St Peter's Basillica.

We stopped briefly in St Peter’s square because Lily wanted to get a picture of the square (once again, the scope of the area, the architecture and statues that adorned the buildings, overwhelms you). But I was most interested in the Obelisk in the middle of the square. There are 13 obelisks that are around the city, and they play a role in Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons book, so my interest was piqued. When I heard that they were brought back to Rome around 100 AD from Egypt, and likely were originally constructed in 2,500 BC, I now had officially found the oldest thing we have seen on this trip.

So the oldest thing we saw in Rome, is stolen from Egypt.

By now we were dead tired, and went back to relax before having dinner. Lily and Megan bought Lily a new suitcase, and then we went out to dinner before packing for our trip to Pisa the next day.

DAY 22

When you see a space in between the day posts that I have, then you know that we are somewhat relaxed and taking our time. But when there is a post every day, then its a bit hectic and we are probably getting somewhat run down. Today, we were going from Rome to Cinqueterre, but its a pretty long trip, so we decided to stop in Pisa on the way. Megan and I had been to Pisa before and there isn’t really a lot to do, so the plan was to spend about 2.5 hours there - basically enough time to get off the train, drop our luggage at a luggage storage place, go to the tower, take a picture and come back to the station and board the next train. We didn’t know how to get there (Uber isn’t in Pisa), but worse comes to worst, we should have enough time to walk there.

It was bittersweet leaving Rome, as it is an incredibly beautiful place. At one point, Lily said, “I feel like every street we go down there is another building that is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” So the trip is a success! Although the bar for future countries is now high.

Before we boarded, we grabbed lunch at a little Scottish restaurant, the first non-italian food we had had on our trip.

The McDonald's Tasty Basket was quite good. 5 out of 5.

It was a 3 hour trip to Pisa, and getting the bags onto the train was once again high stress event. Although we got to the platform 20 minutes early, more than half the train had already boarded so all of the big luggage space was taken and the overhead luggage area was too small to fit our suitcases. Elenna noticed that you could fit luggage behind a couple of the seats, and then I was able to manhandle two suitcases into the overhead area, but with a somewhat dubious outlook for being able to get them back out of the overhead when it was time to leave.

Getting off the train was difficult, but because we had more time, a bit more manageable. I was able to get Keira’s suitcase out of the overhead, but I decided right then that Lily’s suitcase was not likely to be the last one that we replace on our trip.

The taxi line was long so we decided to walk and it was a pretty easy 20 minute walk to the tower. We took a number of pictures there.

Lily complained a lot about how scared she was to do this, but Liam wasn't at all scared to be on her shoulders.

The men of our family have a long history of keeping the tower from falling, and Liam did well on his first try. He doesn't even seem to be straining.

For decades our family has worked to keep this tower upright. The Leaning Tower would have fallen down by now if not for us.

Megan and I remembered from our last trip that there really wasn’t much there besides the tower, but no one was interested in even going into either of the two beautiful churches nearby, but agreed to walk around the tower. When I wanted to go see a 20 foot gate inside the city wall, there was an outright rebellion (even from Megan) and they walked back. Liam came with me, but only because he was in the stroller and I was pushing it and when he realized that we were the only ones there he got out and ran back to the girls, so I had to follow.

On the walk back, we stopped at a little playground place and Megan asked Liam if he wanted to run around a little. And he said, “Do I?!!!” And this after he demanded to be pushed in a stroller the whole way there and back. But he rang around in circles for about 10 minutes and then we went on our way.

The next train was the easiest one to get on - plenty of space in the overhead. The one issue was that we would be on this train for 1 hour, and then transfer to another train for 3 minutes after. There was a 19 minute window where we had to get tickets, and get to the right track. As our train approached the first station we got our first view of Cinque Terre (which is made up of 5 different towns) - beautiful ocean with the waves crashing up against the rocks. We got off at Montessoro and made the mad dash to get all our bags off the train and get tickets for the next train. As we rushed towards the elevator, I had to stop and take this picture. I find it amazing when sometimes a place like a train station gets this kind of prime real estate.

If this is the view from the train station, I can't wait to see more of it.

We got on the next train with 4 minutes to spare, and got to Vernazza where our AirBnB host brought us to our hotel - it was only about 3 minutes from the train station, but half of it was up steps so it felt a whole lot longer. The place we are staying looks pretty neat - I love the loft, and I wonder what the view will be like when its light out. It also seems to be right in the middle of the downtown area - a great spot.

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DAY 25

Yesterday, it was a little overcast and supposed to rain, so Keira, Liam, Megan and I went out to lunch while the other two did their schoolwork (their decision to stay in - as I reread that sentence it sounded like we wouldn’t let them eat unless they did their schoolwork). We headed down to the port and explored a little.

Liam wanted to explore the beach, but it was a little bit dirty to go swimming. Optimus Prime and Bumblebee have been constant companions, especially at meals.

The place we wanted to eat was closed (even though Google said it was open), so instead we went to restaurant at the top of a tower. The steps up would have normally been a little daunting, but everywhere in Vernazza is uphill and up at least 20 steps. The food was quite good and the view was even better.

Once again Optimus and Bumblee joined us for a meal. And they enjoyed the view as much as we did.

From there we went in search of a playground, at which point Keira decided she would rather go back to the room. The three of us followed some on-line instructions and eventually got to a playground on two terraced areas.

We found a playground on two terraces. It was a bit overgrown, but inspired us to keep looking.

It was a bit overgrown, and after about 5 minutes, we decided to walk to a different playground which had much more nebulous directions, including going through the town hall and out the back door. We didn’t know where that was, so we followed directions to the “comune”, which entailed walking back around through the down and up some more steps. It was pretty neat alley ways covered in vines on one side and open land to the other. When we got to the top, we saw what looked to be a convent. So Liam and I walked in the other direction and realized that we had done a big loop and essentially were right back above the first playground.

We went up a lot of stairs. Liam hasn't seen Rocky, so his celebration after reaching the top was a little off.

Liam wasn’t ready to give up yet, saying that he knew for sure where the town hall was so we followed him back through town. Megan and I were impressed by his stamina - something that he rarely showed on museum tours, but apparently if the reward is a playground at the other end, he will walk for hours, up flights of stairs way faster than Megan or I can. Similarly, he didn’t complain at all the day we went on our walk and ended at the playground a couple of days earlier (until we were done and walking back to the train, and then he wanted to be carried…). We were defeated, and went back to the room and continued to work on the rest of our trip planning.

The thing about traveling for 10 months is that there are some major things you have to plan (flights, hotels, maybe some major excursions) and then there are smaller things to plan (train tickets, car rental, taxis). When we first imagined this trip, we thought that we would have everything planned (at least the major stuff) before we left. That turned out to be way too ambitious, which meant that we still had 4 months of the trip to plan when we started. However, we also had the little holes to fill in to - we can obviously get a train from Vernazza to Venice, but we didn’t have tickets. So we had to balance booking things in advance with booking things that were coming up.

Turns out that we should have focused a little more on the things that were coming up, because as we bought the train tickets to Venice two nights before we needed them, there were plenty of tickets, but there weren’t seats next to each other. We were able to get 3 and 3 so it wasn’t too bad, but this was a 3 train trip, and the first 2 trains didn’t even offer the option of reserving tickets. So when we left Vernazza, we were getting good at loading and unloading at this point and were able to get all of our bags on the trains without reserved seats for us (the first train a bit spread out, but the second all together), and the train with seats was a relative breeze. In between the second and third train we had time to stop and grab a bite from a burger stand.

We continued on our path of eating American food while in transit. Liam is trying to do some cross marketing with Five Guys.

DAY 26

Our first full day in Venice. We had arrived the night before and boarded the ferry boat from the train station and took it to the Rialto bridge, which is famous because it was in Spider Man - Far from Home. From there, it was a short walk to our apartment. Keira and Elenna were feeling a little sick after our 5 Guys lunch, so the other 4 of us went out to dinner.

A beautiful boat ride on our way to the apartment.

On our way back, the water level had risen and we had to walk through a big puddle to get to our apartment.

You have to deal with a little flooding in Venice.

This was the largest of the apartments so far, and everyone had their own bedroom (assuming you count Liam sleeping in the living room as a bedroom). Everything was a little fancy, but a little old, like you walked into an old person’s house who lived in their childhood home and all the furniture was the same. I immediately liked it, but it turns out I should stop immediately liking the apartments we stay at.

First, although there is air conditioning, they took the remotes away because “air conditioning in Italy in September is not allowed” even though it was the 4th place we had stayed in Italy in September and the prior 3 all allowed it. Then they told us that we can’t flush any toilet paper down the toilet, and have to throw it in the garbage can. Too much information? Perhaps.

That morning I got up to take a shower and there was no hot water, so after a cold shower, I woke up everyone else and we went out to meet a friend of Keira’s who was studying abroad in Florence this year. Our first friend meet up! If anyone is reading this, you should meet up with us somewhere. Everyone would love to see you.

Venice is a beautiful city, with lots of bridges that make for great picture spots. Here is Lily, smiling before I asked for the 100th picture.

After meeting her at the ferry station, we went to get some brunch at the Brunch Cafe - order the Nutella pancakes - really good. We had some time to kill so we stopped at a palace/museum on the way to a place we heard had good hot chocolate. The palace was somewhat interesting - old paintings on the walls, but it felt more like a 3-4 brownstones put together where a rich family lived, than a “palace,” and didn’t have the outside facade I was looking for. But it was an interesting way to spend 25 minutes.

We got to the hot chocolate place and the hot chocolate was a bit bitter - Lily loved it, but the rest of us would have preferred something sweeter. Liam and Elenna added sugar to theirs, but to no avail. From there we walked to a bookstore Megan had read about that was pretty neat.

The book store stairs were giving off Hogwarts vibes.

After that, we stopped at a chocolate place (Nino and Friends) to look around and they kept giving out free samples of things. We didn’t want to carry around chocolate the rest of the day so we vowed to go back. Then we went to our main activity - learning how to row a gondola. The one problem, with pretty much all of these treks through Venice is that its a city of narrow alleys and winding roads, and google maps doesn’t always know exactly where you are, which means that it is very easy to get turned around. So every 10 minute walk, inevitably turned into a 15-20 minute walk.

When we got to the Gondola place, we split up into two boats, and got to rowing. Liam did a pretty good job, but quickly decided that he preferred to relax on the boat, rather than do much rowing.

I'm not sure any of us have a future in gondoliering. But Liam certainly made himself comfortable.

As we were pulling into the last turn, the weather started getting rough and the wind picked up. A minute after we left the boats, it started to drizzle. Keira and her friend went off to have an early dinner and catch up, while Elenna and Megan went back to the hot chocolate place hoping that Elenna’s travel water bottle which we assumed was left there, was still there. Lily, Liam and I headed back to the hotel. It started pouring rain when we were about 10 minutes from home, and by this time Liam had fallen so I was carrying him and Lily was navigating us. She only had one wrong turn and we got back home only half soaked. Megan and Elenna weren’t so lucky - and were drenched when they got home, although at least they each had a rain coat.

At this point we had walked around Venice enough to see a pizza place that looked really good, and so the 5 of us (ex-Keira) went there to get some pizza to bring back to the apartment. On the way, we stopped at that chocolate place again and got more free samples, and then some not-so-free samples. I definitely recommend it, for the samples alone.

After dinner, we played a bunch of cards. Liam created his own game that was an amalgamation of Crazy 8s, War, and Go Fish, that actually is pretty fun. A deck of cards has no replaced the Transformers as the go to game to bring to restaurants, a turn that Kevin fully embraces, since he is the one that ends up playing with Liam during dinners.

Liam has become a card shark.

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DAY 28

Our last day in Venice. The day before was a generally lazy day in Venice, as Lily did schoolwork, so the rest of us went out in search of a a playground for Liam. This one was pretty good, still relatively small by US standards, but certainly big enough for a five year old to have fun. We bought some food at the grocery store and then ate dinner at home.

Liam enjoyed every playground we went to. And he enjoyed pretty much everything else we have done too.

The next day was a full day. We wanted to have some nice pictures, so we hired a photographer The problem was she wanted to do the shoot at 7:30 am before the crowds took over the area. Although that was a good idea in theory, in practice, getting everyone up and out of the house (and ready for a photo shoot) by 7:20 meant waking up everyone way too early. It also meant that it was in the mid 50s during the shoot. We were all wearing shorts and warm weather clothing, so it will be interesting to see if you can see the goosebumps, or if they will be able to photo shop them out.

We went back to the room for a quick rest, then went out for a gondola ride. Technically, we had been on a gondola type boat 2 days earlier, as we learned how to row, but when in Venice, you kind of have to go on a gondola. The problem was that the kids were tired and not in the mood, but before the trip started, Megan and I made a vow that we wouldn’t let them sit in their room in a place like Venice and watch their phones (which they could do anywhere in the world), when there were one-of-a-kind experiences to be had.

The max room for a gondola is 5 people, so we had to split into two boats. But this made for good picture taking (at least gave me the opportunity to take pictures of Keira, Lily and Elenna. Its not clear if they took any pictures of us).

Megan, in front of the bridge that Spider-man made famous.

The gondola ride was a circle and our driver brought us back to the start. Getting into and out of a gondola is a wobbly proposition and takes your concentration, especially when you have a 5 year old you are trying to get out as well. So by the time that we looked up to pay the gondolier, we realized that the other boat, containing our daughters, wasn’t there. Keira had made some comment as we were getting into the boats that we should have one adult in each, but Megan and I didn’t see a reason for it, and now we were rethinking it. Our gondolier said that they had parked around the corner, and a dispatch-type guy said that we could pay him for the ride, but Megan said, “But where are our daughters?” For the next couple of minutes, they kept saying we could pay them, and we kept asking where our kids were. Eventually their gondolier came around the corner to collect his money, and for some reason he wasn’t escorting our kids. About 15 seconds after he came around, I saw our kids coming around the corner and breathed a sign of relief. It didn’t seem like this was the place that our kids would be kidnapped - it would have been the slowest getaway vehicle ever - but these thoughts run through a parent’s head.

After that we got some pizza and went over to St Marks Basilica for a tour. Once again, we had hired a tour guide geared towards kids, and she was pretty good with Liam, but pretty much ignored the rest of the kids. She did a good job of showing us the church (4 square miles of the interior was covered in gold leaf) and the Doge’s Palace, which was all quite ornate, and would have been pretty impressive if we hadn’t recently been to the Vatican. But it did have some secret passages and a jail.

If only they were on the other side of the bars...

We had timed our tour well because the stories that Venice is sinking are apparently true. Beyond the puddles near our apartment at high tide, we would often see water coming up over the canal and near restaurant tables in some part of the city. For St Mark’s, when we were doing our photo shoot at 7:30am, we saw them setting up risers and I was wondering if there was going to be an event or something. But our tour guide explained that now during high tide, the water comes up and covers a lot of the square in 1-2 inches of water. They have built a glass wall around the cathedral to keep the water out, after they had a giant flood about 5 years ago that was about a foot or 2 higher and caused 250m euros of damage to the cathedral and surrounding shops/restaurants.

By now we were really tired, and Keira and Liam went back to the apartment, while Lily and Elenna (and Megan and I) went in search for head coverings. We had booked a tour in Istanbul of some mosques including the Hagia Sophia, and women needed to wear head coverings. (Keira had bought a scarf a couple of days earlier).

After the gondola scare, I took the picture of Keira walking Liam back to the hotel by themselves wondering if this would be the last time we would ever see them. But they got home just fine.

Megan and I had read about Cicchetti, which apparently was a tapas like food, so we went out to try some and have some drinks. The first place we went to was Alla Vedova - 3912 - they had great fried meatballs, that might have been the best thing I had in Venice. We went to another place and were underwhelmed. After that, we rounded up the kids and had dinner, and Liam fell asleep on me, so we went back to the hotel while the girls went out for gelato - because it was the last night in Italy, and you gotta do what you gotta do.