Leonard Family Around the World Adventure

Friday January 25 th , 2008. Up this morning at 7am. I work on my blog and do not wake the girls until after 8am. It is a beautiful day – it looks like an early spring morning in CA where it is crisp but you expect t to warm up during the day. I sing Aria happy birthday I cannot believe she is 14. We grab our breakfast which is included and decide to take a day trip to San Gimignano (still cannot even begin to fathom how to pronouce it). The hardest part of the drive is getting away from Sienna – the rest is very smooth. Again it feels like driving in the foothills or Napa region in CA but with fortresses always in the distance. The town is a medieval town with many towers. We enter the main Piazza and walk around. We visit the rocca or remains of the fortress walls. Spectacular views. I can imagine this place being less fun in the peak season with the small roads it could be very crowded. About 50% of the stores are closed and we seem to be sharing the town with a few tourist

Thursday January 24 th . Did not sleep well again. Woke up at 4am to work on blogs. I think I am a little home sick – trying to ignore it and not long for home but I am a little anxious to get back to work. I really would like to find a place to settle down with internet access for a few days to catch up on things. Maybe we can find a long weekly rate somewhere. I can hear Aria sighing – my typing must be bothering her. She will be 14 tomorrow. Not sure what we are going to do today – perhaps continue on to Sienna or Firenze. I wish I spoke Italian. I read the guide book for a while and given the number of things to do in Tuscany we decided to head to Sienna. We have the car for a few more days and we can use it to take days trips out of Sienna. We grab our pastry and cappuccino breakfast, load up and head out of town. The drive is actually quite smooth – we head towards Napoli so we can catch the highway to Firenze without hitting the ring road around Rome. One stop for drinks, b

Wednesday January 23 rd . We decide to check out and drive to Pompeii and then head towards a suburb of Rome – Frescati. The smell of smoke really is the deciding factor – I cannot stand it anymore plus off-season in Sorrento does not offer many things to see. Skipping the Amalfi coast drive – too nervous about the drive and encountering traffic on a very arrow cliff lined road. It is nor raining although it stormed hard the all night. It is crisp, clear and chilly. We make the drive to Pompeii – and magically do not get lost. Pull right into a parking area a few hundred yards from the entrance. Parking all day is 10 euro – they sell us a guide book 7 euro and there is even a restaurant for when we are done. Pompeii is awesome – I am glad we did not skip it. It is very large – deceptively – we start slowly and realize this could take a couple of days. The wind is blowing pretty hard and we are not dressed very well. Allysha is not feeling very well but hangs in there. The theat

  Tuesday January 22, 2008 Did not sleep well – I am thinking about home and work. Lack of internet access and time to work is bothering me. Some sort of parade/political display this morning – garbage is not being picked up so the merchants in the piazza cannot work. I know there is also a problem in Napoli – one of the reasons we did not stop there. We met a military couple on the Nile cruise that warned us. I wonder if it has something to do with the Mafia. We have our free breakfast – pastry and coffee and decide to walk around and see the sights. We find a museum of local Art – the lady seems surprised to have any visitors. It is pretty neat – a ton of old photographs of the town and examples of the incredibly beautiful wood techniques – inlays, painting, carving, and mosaics. Absolutely stunning. We take the 2pm Ferry to Capri. Catch the bus from the port to Capri town – another resort town shut down for the winter. We walk around many things inducing most of the hotels a

Monday January 21 st . We wake up and decide to head south. We rent a car (Lancia) 250 Euro for the week and a 50 euro fee for being able to return it anywhere in Italy. Unfortunately we could not get a GPS as that requires the car to be returned to the original rental location. My GPS has stopped working -very disappointing. Our destination is Sorrento which looks like a resort town – I hope we can find cheap boarding in the off-season. The Drive takes a lot longer than it should as we get lost but eventually make it. Some very long tunnels connect the Peninsula with the Napoli region. We arrive as the Sun is going down and park in a garage. We head out on foot looking for lodging, The hotel Pam picked during the drive wants us to rent 2 rooms at 300 euro a night – no thanks. The next hotel offers us a room for 200 Euro but Pam asks inside a bar which sends us to a hostel - Ostello Le Sirene which gives us a room for 80 Euro including parking. It is a little cramped but it

Sunday January 20th. Pam negotiates a 20% discount at the hotel for another day and we decide to stay. We drop off another load of laundry on our way to Termini Station where I buy a Train Italia Orario – Train Schedule which is actually more like a catalog -it is huge. We board the metro and get off at the Coliseum station. First we visit Palatine hill and our Roma pass got us in for free. The Palatine hill is a large group of ruins very cool and some nice views including the Circus Massimo. Next the Roma Pass allowed us to skip the lines straight into the Coliseum where we got 2 audio guides as recommended by Mick. Very cool, but a little disconcerting to think of the events that took place there. Strange that killing was considered entertainment. We stopped for dinner – it was very good and then walked across the bridge Castle San Angelo which is a museum it too was amazing with tremendous views of Rome. We were there during sunset which made it even better. And of course the a

Saturday January 19th. Up early – I have sore throat -Pam has been ill for a couple days and now I seem to have caught it. First priority as we left the hotel we dropped off laundry about ¼ mile from our room. Then we walked back to the hotel and tried to call and make reservations for the Borghese museum as they only allow a small number of people in for a 2 hour visit. The ticket office was closed but we decided to walk over anyway. We entered at 9:45 which only left 1:15 minutes and rather than paying for just the museum we purchased a 3 day Roma Pass that included entrance to another site and transport on buses and metro A and B for three days and discounts to other sites. It was 20 euro each. The museum was beautiful and the audio tour was well worth it. If you remember to bring headphones 2 people can use a single audio guide as plugging in the headphones does not disable the internal speaker – as a matter of fact I will start carrying the splitter I brought. The wall and ce

Friday January 18 th Up early this morning as we leave for the airport at 8am. We said goodbye to Hany and Kathy and Gen – it was very sad. Aria and I spoke about returning to Egypt someday, after learning Arabic. Taken To the airport and we were escorted through check-in – very nice service. Again sad to be leaving Egypt but looking forward to Rome. We ate breakfast and our flight left on-time. It was 3.5 hours with a one hour time change backwards. Painless! Into Italy – customs and passport a breeze. Pam got us a room in northern Rome within walking distance of a park called Borghese – not sure if this is a good location or not but it was recommended by the tourist information lady. We took a cab for 40 euro. About a 30km drive and cheaper than all of us on a train. The room was nothing too great, a queen and 2 singles – one room with tiny bath for 130 euro's. Seems expensive but the first room is always the hardest as you do not know the layout of the city yet. It tur

Wednesday January 16th, 2008 Up at 7am grabbed a quick breakfast – very excited today we see the pyramids. We were on the bus headed for Giza Plateau by 8am. We arrived very quickly about 8:15am. Found out there was an extra ticket to actually enter the largest pyramid but the smaller pyramid was included. Applying our experience from King Tut’s tomb we immediately rushed to get the extra ticket – we were luck as the number of people allowed entry to the Pyramid is restricted but everyone in our group that wanted to enter was able to. The Pyramid was amazing – I tried to imagine what it looked like when it was its exterior was intact – what an engineering marvel. The entrance is about 30 feet up and the path to the burial chamber is arrow and steep. It opens up eventually and into a surprisingly large chamber with a sarcophagus on the right side as you enter. There were no markings or paintings inside the pyramid. No pictures either but some people smuggled in cameras and took p

Thursday January 17 th , 2008 We hired a driver from the hotel 250 EP for six hours. It was a little tight fitting 6 in the car but we managed. First stop the Museum – there was a line but we made it inside by 9:45am. The whole time in Egypt I have been trying to imagine what it must be like in summer – I am very glad we visited in winter. We spent a few hours exploring the museum – it was amazing. We paid extra to see the mummy exhibit which we had skipped yesterday and I am glad we did – it was very interesting and stirred many emotions and ideas. I especially liked the mummified cobra *which you can see as part of the regular entry fee and some of the fake mummified animals – a scam thousands of years old). So much to see – I actually bought a guide book and glad I did. We could not locate our driver at the designated spot and time – fortunately I saw where he had parked and headed into the garage – he was asleep. We loaded up and headed out. Next stop an overseas carrier TN