Days 25, 26, & 27: Medieval times and castles, castles everywhere!

where are our recorders?

Location: Boeing 767 Flight 65 to JFK New York Airport

Hours of Travel: 145

Cleanliness: 5 (airplanes…)

Comments:

· On Sunday morning, Ian, Trent, and I went to church. This Sunday was stake conference, a day when a bunch of wards meet together and the leaders of the region speak. We felt very fortunate we came this week because they had translator headphones so we could actually understand!

· Side note- Ian drove to the wrong church first from a bad address :P

· After church we went to Zurich. It’s about a two hours drive from where Ian lives but stake conference already brought us half way there.

· Zurich is known as the financial capital of Switzerland, which is saying a lot since the Swiss are some of the richest people in the world. On Sunday, they close all their restaurants so we just walked around the empty city window shopping and comparing prices to the US

· After looking in a beautiful church called Munster Gross I noticed a ton of people in a public square. I dragged the men over and we found a medieval festival! I couldn’t believe our luck! The medieval festival was so neat not only because of the energy but also that it was located in a place that actually looked medieval! They had a man powered Ferris wheel, traditional shops for weapons and clothing, and a live chess game (like in harry potter).

man-powered medieval ferris wheel

· We walked to beautiful Lake Zurich.

· After the long drive home, Ian spoiled us with a delicious dinner complete with grilled chicken, salad, beans, rice, and MAGNUM ice cream bars!!!

· PS… I forgot my camera memory card that day so unfortunately I don’t have pictures with us in them :(

Funny thing- Ausfahrt means driving exit. I thought the word sounded hilarious.

· Monday was an incredibly active day. But we couldn’t have had the energy unless we slept. We slept for 11 hours that night and finally felt like we were catching up on our sleep.

· Ian road his bike to work and let us use his car! Trent was THRILLED. He gave us some suggestions for where to go. We started the day Wildpark in Feldkirch, Austria. Wildpark is a free zoo with native animals. It was super fun since Trent and I are such animal lovers (Trent especially).

view from Wildpark

Trent's like a 3-year-old when he sees animals. It's so adorable!

· Then we went to the Feldkirch castle. This may have been my favorite castle of all because it was what I had always imagined a castle to look like based on what I’ve learned (and of course see in Disney movies). The other castles we visited like Versailles are so famous because it’s not your average castle and I needed to see what a “normal” one was.

wind up entrance to the castle

short hallways. the ceilings were amazing though!

poop buckets. seriously, this is where the people went to relieve their bowels.

artillery room

· We ate at another kebab joint, walked around the beautiful city, and headed back to Buchs.

town square

· Ian prepared a very special night for us. We drove to another castle very close to his house. It is open to the public and has a couple BBQ pits! So we BBQed at an ancient castle.

castle ruins

walk up to the castle

goats we passed on the walk up to the castle. remember this cheaky face.

brudurz :)

· FUNNY STORY- We had the last bits of salad and Trent said that I should feed it to the goats close by. I was super excited about it! I slipped my hand through the fence and BOOM! Got electrocuted…

cheaky, stupid, little goat...

· Another side note- There are so many castles in this area that were actually fixated in a way that if there were ever an invasion, on of the castles could light a fire, others close by would see the flame, and set a chain reaction (LIKE IN LORD OF THE RINGS!!!!)

· After the BBQ, we went to Liechtenstein to visit a beautiful church and the castle where the King currently lives with his family. Liechtenstein is one of the few places where a King still rules let alone lives in the castle! The site was breathtaking at sunset.

Liechtenstein castle

· This was probably one of my favorite days of the whole trip. It was so active and so incredibly beautiful. Trent and I like the places where we can really see how people live in the country.

· Our last day Trent and I relaxed and did last minute things we knew we’d regret. We bought chocolate…

so much chocolate to choose from!

· And cooked tons of delicious food including hot chocolate, richlet (when your melt cheese in a pan and put it on potatoes…it’s like the opposite of fondue) and spetzle (egg noodle) with bratwurst sauce.

rochlet with pickle, silver onions, and boiled potatoes. YUMMMMMM

spaetzle with braut sauce. bigger, deeper yummmmm.

· Lastly we visited Werdenberg, the smallest and oldest town in Switzerland (dating back to the 1200) and, of course, its castle.

there old water source dating back to 1200 AD

outside the castle

For now Auf Wesidersein!

Days 23 & 24: Cinque Terre...we'll meet again

forcing Trent to make a heart with me at the Via Dell'Amore sign

Location: Ian and ShaRee's home, Buchs, Switzerland

Hours of Travel: 136 (or 5 1/2 days...)

Cleanliness: 9. YAY!

Comments:

-Trent and I woke up semi casually Friday afternoon for our train ride to Cinque Terre. Unfortunately we kept having bad lucky in our train time schedule so we didn't get there until around 1pm.

stripes on stripes! Trent changed shortly after I pointed is outfit out to him

-When Trent and I got to Cinque Terre, we (or maybe it was just I) were super exhausted. We already hiked over a mile with our packs on so our backs were feeling the stress and Cinque Terre is anything but flat country. We got to our B&B and, of course, NOBODY WAS THERE TO CHECK US IN. For those of you not keeping up with our travels...this is the third time in a row this has happened.

waiting for the B&B lady to check us in...

-While waiting we checked out the B&B and climbed the stairs to the lookout point of Vernazza.

-By 2:30 pm, we were checked in and ready to hike! We basically ran to the hiking trail because we were so excited. But when we got there, each hike cost 5 Euros a person. Trent and I were totally bummed; that met another 40 Euros to spend on just walking. We were already pretty low on our money and late in the day so we skipped the trail hiking and decided to train ride to 2 other cities and explore.

-While exploring we ran into a New Zealand family who were traveling for a whole year! They were awesome to talk to.

-Also, Cinque Terre is a huge destination for English speakers (americans especially). So if your not into that, still go and just avoid the people. It's seriously the most beautiful place I've ever been to (thank you Margaret for suggesting this!!!!).

pretty rocks by the water at Vernazza

Boats and things at Riomaggiore

-Riomaggiore has a trail called the road of love. It's where people put locks on a fence to "seal" their eternal love for one another. It also cost 5 per person...so...we got a picture next to the sign. We figured we already sealed our love once. :)

-At the end of the day, we went to Monterosso which was more of a beach city than the other 4. Here we bought ingredients for a delicious homemade pasta dinner.

-We ate gnocchi, pesto, tomatoes and bread and made our own home-cooked Italian dinner while we watched the sunset. It was so romantic. Honeymoon destination: definite check (if you have the $$$)

dinner for 2

- The following day Trent and I had 5 trains to get to Buchs to visit Trent's brother Ian! Though it may sound gruesome, the rides were stunning. We crossed from Italy to Italian Switzerland and passing beautiful mountain ranges and lakes. Finally we made it to Heidiland, or German Switzerlan, and Ian picked us up one train earlier than we though. We ate hamburgers, caught up on his wife and children (who are in the US right now) and laughed and stayed up real late (Hartman style).

Things we are thinking: We absolutely cannot believe we only have 2 days left before our plain-rides home. We're exhausted but so sad that this life-long dream is quickly coming to a close. I will write plenty on Switzerland area before the end of the trip as well as a full scale review on our trip travel, accommodations, and tourist attractions. Altogether, I couldn't be happier about the finished product. Holidays like this are supposed to not go perfectly and affect the travelers in a way for good!

For now, Auf Wiedersehen!

Days 21 & 22: Roma if you want to and Pisa Pizza

(I wrote this post at 11:00 pm and fell asleep with my laptop ontop of me. At 2:30 am I woke up and posted it without correcting. Now @ 7:40 am, I finally am not hallucinating and was able to correct it for real. Think I need to catch up on some sleep?!)

Location: Welcome Bed and Breakfast ('welcome' is the actual name), Pisa, Italia

Hours of Travel: 125

Cleanliness: 1 1/2... yuck! I hate mildew towels and stinking shoes.

Comments:

-At 8am we arrived in Rome from Sicily and were pleasantly surprised to find our hostel right next to the train station. Unfortunately, the owner would not let us check in until 3:30. So we decided to tour the city during the waiting period. I'm so glad we took the opportunity to tour instead of just sleeping in. Rome is huge and we had to get started right away.

-Fortunately the hostel had advertisements for free tours of Rome: Vatican and Colosseum. We actually took both tours!

the free tour meeting point at the spanish steps

all of the water fountains are drinkable so this is trent getting water from a famous bernini ship-fountain (don't remember the name...)

-The first tour at eleven was a walk all the way to the Vatican. During the walk the guide gave us history on the different streets, squares, and buildings we passed. Trent and I loved the history and stories behind the buildings so it was great to get it at such a discounted price!

-Since the pope spoke that day, actually going into the Vatican wasn't ideal because it was overly crowded and locked down with security. Trent and I decided to hold off visiting the vatican till the next day and instead going back to the 2nd free tour.

headquarters of the Illuminati from Angels and Demons!!! (it actually is the hopes secret apartment)

-Side note---the guide, who is actually a masters students, gets paid by tips (probably tax free and about 5 euros pp) and has about ten people per tour. He gives three tours a day four days a week. You do the math and don't forget to compute that to USD. Cha-ching!

-The colosseum tour was great too in that we went to walked through the ancient rome forum and found a less popular picture site for the colosseum.

-We ended the night semi-early because we knew we had such an active next day.

-Today, we woke up at 7:15 AM for breakfast, checkout, Fontana De Trevi and our tickets for the Vatican.

making our wishes come true at the Fontana De Trevi

-I saw the Sistine chapel in all it's glory today. I was so happily surprised with all the other corridors of beauty even before the glorified ceiling. Sadly, when we entered the actual chapel, the Swiss guard kept yelling at the guests to be quiet and not take pictures. It really took away from the spiritual side of the religious room.

notice the plaster fig leaves on the cherubs privates? ALL of the male statues are like this.

Trent and I in one of the corridors before the Sistine Chapel

-After the Sistine Chapel, we took a train to Pisa. We arrived in the evening and had to wait for our B&B owner to arrive and check us in (so unlucky with our check-ins lately!). Finally we checked in by 8 and headed off to a DELICIOUS pizza place (seriously the best pizza I've ever had in my life... you can tell by the picture).

-At the end of the night we walked to the Leaning Tower where we took some weight-baring pictures.

Things we are thinking: We have seriously been treating our pallets lately! What will we do without gelato??? While on the train to Pisa, I was given two pieces of paper from individuals asking for money.

in a situation like this, what am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to believe? These people came on the train at two different times so I know they weren't related...it's just so discouraging when those asking for sympathy are conning me as well.

We walk cinqe terre tomorrow. Will we make it? Wish us luck!

For now chao!