Rome......Finally

Getting to Rome from here is a pretty easy 2 hour drive. I found a cottage outside the city for us to stay in that had an area for the kids to play and a kitchen. The Metro wasn't far from there so we could spend 3 days exploring Rome as a family! Dante was excited to go to the zoo and see the Coloseum. It seemed like a simple, quick trip to get away from here for a bit. However, our trip did not start off as planned. As we were heading out of town (in our Naples beater) about to get on the freeway, 2nd and 5th gear went out on our car. We were able to get home and get into our other Naples beater and make it about 45 minutes from home when our trip came to a screeching halt.

This one overheated and left us stuck on the side of the Autostrada.

At least we had a decent view.

The kids were entertained for a while throwing rocks.

And then jumping the ditch.

We were stuck there for several hours but I was still able to get them to smile.

We did finally make it up to Rome the next day and tried to make the best of our rough start. The cottage was great!

There were good times on the Metro

 

Trevi Fountain

 

The Colosseum stop on the metro.

 

 

 

And other than seeing a vulture sitting down with its head turned all the way around, the zoo was just the zoo.

 

 

I really would have loved that extra day but it was a successful trip nonetheless. Until next time...

 

 

Randomness

There are so many little day to day things I've experienced since being here that really don't have enough pictures or information to have their own post, so I thought I would combine several of them together. These are the random, cool, and strange things I see and experience on a regular basis.


The sidewalks in our area are few and far between. And I have yet to see a bike lane anywhere. So quite often the drivers here are forced to share the road with people walking or riding bikes casually in the middle of the road.

The escalators in the malls don't have steps! I love this! You can take your cart or stroller up or down without having to find the elevator.

Naples also isn't known for their adherence to basic traffic laws. It's pretty much a free for all. As long as you don't hit someone, anything goes! As seen here with a family of four on a moped. This is a very common occurence.

The Italian ice cream man! Selling "granite" which is similar to a slushy.

Dryers are a luxury item here so laundry gets hung out to dry daily.




Bucket full of snails being sold at a local open air market. I'm still not sure what they are used for here.

We live in a somewhat rural part of town. There are a couple of different flocks of sheep that graze in our area so I have gotten stuck in sheep traffic many times.

While all of these things are somewhat strange to us Americans, this is the norm to the people of Naples!

A trullo, a cave, and a hungry camel

We finally took our first family getaway out of Naples! For two days we stayed in a little town called Alberobello which is on the east coast of Italy. It is known as "Citta dei trulli," the city of the trulli. A trullo is an interesting little home that is unique to that particular region of Italy. They were like a Flintstone house and a smurf house all in one. They are made of stone and have a roof that reminds you of the mushroom top smurf houses. Inside, the doorways are low so that you have to duck your head to get in. Many of them are homes to those who reside in Alberobello while others are used as "hotels" for visitors.

The trullis all have the signature grey pointed roof.

 

Our first stop was to Grotte de Castellana (Castellana Caves).

The caves were discovered in 1938 and are made up of several chambers full of stalactites and stalagmites. The tour winds through 3km of the cave, however we were only allowed to take photos in the first chamber.

We traveled down 60m of stairs to get to the first chamber called "La Grave" (the abyss)

A piece of earth fell naturally to create this hole, which in turn alerted people to the caves below.

These are some stalagmites found in the first chamber. The rock formations were beautiful and even though the tour guide said not to touch them, of course I had to, they were cold and damp to the touch.

Our next stop was Zoosafari. It was the ultimate zoo experience! Half of the park is a regular zoo and amusement park, while the other half you are able to drive your vehicle through to see the animals up close and personal and also feed them! We were greeted by a slough of hungry deer.

 

Can you believe the tongue on this guy?

The boys (dad included) were a little apprehensive about feeding the animals at first, but they soon got into it.

 

Waiting at the gate gives you ample time to roll up your windows. Although we saw several cars driving through with their windows down, Deron Hudson doesn't play that so we were all secure.

We witnessed a pretty intense bear fight live and up close. 

 

I think he won the battle.

I thought it was so cool to see such a mix of animals all eating peacefully together.

And our last stop was to the beach. Now I don't know about you, but when I think of a beach I think of a spacious area with sand, kids running from the waves, sandcastles, etc. While we made a stop at the gas station we asked someone to recommend a beach. Coincidentally, him and his friends were headed to one that he said was nice and clean so we just followed him. And this is where we went.

 People just kind of hung out on the ledges of the wall and instead of sand, the beach was made up of smooth rocks.

It's obviously a popular beach for the locals. It was packed! Even without sand they lay out!

Despite it being different from what I'm used to, the kids had a great time in the water.

This was a great first trip of hopefully many more to come. And I'm pretty sure that after driving through Zoosafari and being able to feed a camel, I will never have the same appreciation for a regular zoo again! Stay tuned for more!