2 Rivieras: 2008 Spring Break Trip: April 2008

TRIP DIARY ITALY 2008

TRIP DATES 26 MARCH TO 5 APRIL, 2008

DAY 1: WED. 26 MARCH, 2008
We all arrived at RDU Airport between 10 and 10:30 AM, in plenty of time to check in and get out plane. As usual, we had to wait around upstairs until plane time, but we spent the time getting to know each other. The Plane left on time, about 12:50 PM for New York.

We had a bit of a layover, but all went well, until we got on to the plane and discovered that Delta had double-booked 4 or 5 of our seats, including mine. It was all soon settled, but was a bit confusing for time. We managed to leave NY an hour late, but there were empty seats, so we could stretch out, and we had a nice flight.

DAY 2: Thursday 27 Mar, 2008
Our Day in Nice. Rita our tour director and Peppe our driver picked us up from the Nice Airport, and took us straight downtown so we could start our tour of Nice. It was a nice, cool, cloudy day, but getting sunnier by the minute.

We took the tram tour of Nice, going up to the high spot at the old castle on the hill, to get a great view of Nice. Afterwards we did our obligatory walking tour, around the seaside and some of the old town. This is a beautiful, old seaside resort city, sort of the Miami Beach of France in the 1880s. It was very popular with the British (thus the English Promenade). We had our own lunch in various places, then went to check in at the hotel. We had a bit more free time until we met at the big statue and went to dinner, which was the worse meal of our trip. The French in Nice cannot cook? We had some good twilight walking around Nice. Later, from the hotel, some of our folks headed for the nearest McDonalds.

Day 3: Friday 28 Mar. 2008
Our day to go to Italy, by way of the perfume factory, and Monaco for lunch. The perfume factory was actually educational, as they showed us how things ware made, tested our sense of small, and, of course, tried to sell us some expensive perfume. There were EF groups in front of and behind us. A very busy time for them. In Monaco, Rita took some of us to her favorite Monaco restaurant, L’Aurore. It was, of course, good Italian food. We got to walk around the Main square in front of the palace in Monte Carlo, and see the changing of the guard as well. Not as classy as in London, but then, all of Monaco itself is smaller than London!

It was a long afternoon of driving, with a couple of stops for over-looks. The French, then Italian Riviera is very build-up and crowded, but is fairly rocky and wild, just dropping down straight into the Mediterranean sea in many places. There are many (a hundred) tunnels on this road. Once we got into Italian Liduria and close to La Spezia, we headed out into a more rural area, and our bus worked it’s way up many hills to our hotel, which was way out in the middle of no where! We were the only folks at this hotel, and it was a bit chilly up here in the hills! (They had to pipe in the roosters!)

This area looked a bit like NC in the Smokies, or even Appalachia. There was nothing to do around the hotel but look at the scenery, so it is good it was pretty. Diner at the hotel was very good, the staff was very nice, but they turned the heat off at midnight! (And did not turn it back on in the AM!)

Day 4: Saturday 29 Mar, 2008
We got up early, ate an OK breakfast, then headed for the RR station in La Spezia to catch our train to the Cinque Terra Villages. You can walk between the 5 villages, or ride the train. We walked between the first 2, then took the train. It is touristy, but the little towns are very picturesque. The coastal scenery was spectacular, the rocks and the blue ocean were really spectacularly visible here, unblocked and unmarred by multi-million Euro Villas! We ate lunch in the last village, before heading back, but service took so long, we almost missed the train!

But we got back, then got on our bus and headed for Florence, our next hotel. It was actually outside Florence, but it was a nice hotel, with wireless (when it worked!), and dinner was right down the street. The disadvantage is that we were so far out of town, there was really nothing to do after dark. We did get a good night’s sleep.

Day 5: Sunday, 30 Mar, 2008

On Sunday we got up early to head for Pisa. I had not been to Pisa before, so I did not know what to expect. Pisa was lovely. The main square has 3 buildings, the Baptistery, the Cathedral (Duomo), and the Campaniela (Bell Tower) that leans. The square was partly surrounded by the old city walls. It was not very crowded, and we had the world’s oldest tour guide. (Thought he was old enough to have built it himself!) Of course, we all spent some time holding the tower up (see the photo of Tyler!), as well as listening to the acoustics in the Baptistery, and playing soccer on the lawn. We all had lunch and bought souvenirs. Some of the places to eat were quite good.

Back on the bus, we headed for Florence, where we started out with a great walking tour. (2 walking tours in 1 day, sore feet!) We got a short look at all the important places, the Plazza Signioria, the Plazza de Republica, the Plazza Duomo, The Pitti and Uffizi Palaces, as well as the Church of Santa Croche, which we walked by on the way in. I got to visit the Michael Collins Irish Pub to use their facilities! Ah, the Michael Collins, my local in Florence! We also visited the Leonardo Leather shop for a demonstration of leather working, a warning about fake leather, and some shopping.

We had dinner in a 3rd floor restaurant just behind the Uffizi. Great food, and we were about the only group there. Private dinner! Nice. Some of us got lost getting back to the bus, but when we found everybody, we headed back to the hotel to get ready. We dressed up and went to the disco! Shades of Travolta! Everybody had way too much fun at the disco! We got home pretty late, the wireless was not working! Drat,

Day 6: Monday, 31 March, 2008

We had planned to go to the Uffizi Gallery (The best museum in Florence) on our free time, but it turned out to be closed, so we had to make do with shopping and wandering thru the beautiful streets of Florence. Drat! We got to re-visit some of the places we flew thru on the previous afternoon, and a few of us were able to visit the sculpture museum. There was some military day celebration going on, the 85th anniversary of something, perhaps the seizing of control of the Italian Army by Musilini in 1923. There were lots of differently dressed army guys and police, and jets and helicopters flying over head all day. (I thought at first it might be a coup!)

After lunch (at Michael Collins, of course!( we shopped, and at 2:30, we headed for our bus and Venice. Of course, our hotel is in Jesolo, which is on the coast, a bit of a boat-ride from Venice, but still nice. We got to see a lot of country-side on our journey to the North and East of Italy. We were all pretty tired and sleepy by the time we got there.

The hotel was nice, but was full of student tour groups. The noisiest were the French and the Belgians. Our kids, were, of course, perfect! Some of us got little sleep, and there was no wireless in this hotel.

Day 7: Tuesday, 1 April, 2008

Happy April Fool’s Day. Luckily our visit to Venice was not an April fool’s joke like last time. We spent the while day this time. This time, also, it was not foggy on the Lagoon, so we were able to see things on our neat water-taxi ride from Jesolo to Venice. It was early enough to be chilly, but very pretty.

In Venice, we landed at the mail landing near the Doge’s Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. We met our guide and immediately headed for a few of the less touristy areas in Venice. These parts of East Venice gave us a view of what Venice has been like for 400 or 500 years. We ended up back at St. Marks Square, after wending our way through many narrow alleys. On our list of places to visit was the Murano Glass Museum, where they had a demonstration of glass blowing, an art (like Gondola driving) that has been passed down from father to son for generations. They even free-handed glass horse in 3 minutes, to show us how skilled they were! We visited the sales room, but things were very expensive.

After lunch (some of us had great food in St Mark’s Sq, at one of the smaller, out of the way restaurants) we had free time until 4:30 (Gondola ride). We had tickets for the Doge’s Palace to use for a visit during that time. The ticket included a walk through the largest room (?) in Europe, and a walk across the Bridge of Sighs. The bridge of Sighs is famous as a person’s last look at freedom before going to jail in old Venice. We got to tour the prison as well, and it’s grim! Many of us also walked thru St. Mark’s cathedral, supposedly where the bones of St. Mark are buried!

Some of got to the Academia Bridge across the Grand Canal, and some of us got to go to the Realto Bridge also across the Grand Canal. There are only 3 bridges, and the other one is too far away to get to easily. Some of us got to go shopping. We met for the Gondola ride, and it was a grand ride! Greyson even got to try out his J-stroke and propel his gondola a little bit. It was great to see the part of Venice that is away from the walking areas. And it was very nice to be somewhere in Italy that had no cars. Everyone thought that Venice was the most beautiful place we had visited yet!

At our final meeting place, some of us played with the pigeons (see the photos!) and had an interesting time!. (Never saw the attraction myself, but have seen kids do it in Trafalgar Square in London as well!) We met the water taxi at 6: to head back to Jesolo and dinner at out hotel. We had planned to go to another Disco, but it was closed, so we had to settle for dodging the French kids (and the Romanians) and try to get some sleep.

Day 8: Wednesday, 2 April, 2008

Today, we are up early to be off to the town of Como, and the lake of the same name. We have to meet our boat in the early afternoon for our cruise on Lake Como. The high point of this bus ride was undoubtedly out fine, Gourmet, AutoGrille lunch. Gotta love those Italian truckstops!

The closer to Como we got, the better the scenery. Lake Como is in the Italian Alps, almost on the border with Switzerland. Some of those who thought that Venice was the most beautiful place in Italy changed their minds, Lake Como was so pretty. Others just thought it was the 2nd most lovely place we had seen. Pretty hard to beat blue water, picturesque little towns perched on the hillsides above the lake, with the snow-capped peaks of Switzerland leaping up in the background.

We made ouR boat on time, and crossed the Lake to the little town of Bellagio, where we spent an hour walking around town, shopping, looking for a toilet, and some of us found a chateau (Where Napoleon had once slept!) with a wonderful garden we could wander through. Right down the lake was the villa where Tom Cruise was married last time (which he is rumored to want to buy). Back on our boat, we toured this part of the lake. It is too big to see the whole thing. We did go by the big lake-side house that Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has just bought, but we were unable to go by the villa of George Clooney.

Getting to our hotel after the cruise was akin to mountain climbing in a bus, it was sooooo steep. In fact, we probably went all the way up to the Swiss border. But it was a beautiful hotel with a great soccer yard, at least some of the guys thought so. Dinner was great, probably the best yet. It was cool and we slept the sleep of the righteous (and dead) that night.

Day 9: Thursday 3 April, 2008

This is our train day! We will drive to Milan, ditch our bus and our bus driver Peppe, and go to Rome by train. The drive to Milan from our hotel was beautiful, but the traffic was a killer. We almost did not make it. However, Peppe drove like a LeMans racer and get us to the church, I mean station, on time!

Well, we made it in good time, but it was a fast schlep! Nice thing about the train is that we had plenty of room in our seats, (much more comfortable than out bus) we had power for our computers, and they sold food! For those who did not sleep, there was the Italian countryside to watch.

We got to Rome in plenty of time to use our free time for a “private” walking tour to see things that were not going to be on our formal tour on Friday. It was a bit of a rush, but we had plenty of time to see the Pantheon (a Roman Temple to all the gods that is now a Catholic Church), and then we walked over to the Plaza Navona, which was once a Roman chariot racetrack. It was a pleasant hour there, a chance to rest, eat gelato, and I got back to my other favorite restaurant/bar in Rome. It is a great people-watching place just off the Plaza!

We walked to dinner from the Plaza Navona, and after dinner (and an almost lost camera), we boarded our bus and went to our hotel for a welcome night’s sleep. The hotel had a computer, but the wireless was not working. Shucks! There was a McDonalds next door, however. We ran into another EF group, from my home town in Florida. Coincidence!

Day 10: Friday 4 April, 2008

This is our busy day in Rome! We get a quick, almost early breakfast, then hit the bus and head for a bus tour of Rome, then a walking tour of Vatican City. It was great, we had a good guide, but the little radio hearing aids did not work as well as in Florence. After we had lunch, we headed for the old part of Rome, the Coliseum and the Forum. We spent the early afternoon walking thru this area. The weather held, even though the sky looked threatening every so often.

We left our guide and headed out for some more free time in Rome! After visiting the Trevi Fountain (and buying more gelato!) we walked down to the Spanish Steps. This enabled everyone to see all the shopping available for the time we had. It was a nice afternoon in Rome. One of the parents and I even found an Irish Pub (in Rome?), Amazing.

Luckily, dinner was walking distance from the hotel, which made it very convenient. We all needed a good nights sleep before our flight the next day. It always takes hours to get thru the airports, and we had folks going home on 2 different flights!

Day 11; Saturday 5 April, 2008

Good by Roma, Hello Durhama! We left the Rome airport (named for Leonardo Di Vinci) about an hour apart, but got back to RDU about 2o minutes apart, even though part of our group went thru Frankfurt, Germany and the rest of us went thru Toronto, Canada. We got plenty of sleep on the floor of the Toronto airport, and I got lots of photos uploaded, since I finally got good wireless!

All in all, a great trip, lots of really great kids, and the adults were priceless as well. It was the teachers ( and my wife) that I had for help that really made this trip as good as it was. Thanks to everyone who chipped in and worked for thr group happiness and welfare on this trip!

Howard Du Bose