Summoning

I'm not sure what she was attempting, but I thought it looked like an amateur exorcism.

They grow up so fast. 

Flying buttresses

We were able to get close to the fort you could see at the top of the previous picture.

Old Gaeta

A nice shot on the way to tour the old part of Gaeta. Really a beautiful day.

Gaeta Regata

Loads of sailboats. Tried to take a picture, but a bunch of obnoxious american kids jumped in the frame.

sorry

Visitors!

  3/4ths of the Rosenblum clan showed up later this morning. Exhausted, they arrived. They were fed, shown around and settled in. Gluten free pasta, gelato and prosciutto were the highlights.

  Soccer, basketball and a little volleyball were played nearly everywhere. The beach was nice with high seas and very little sprinkles of rain.

  As a side note, it's also nearing a full moon. Get out tomorrow and look at it. 

Seriously.

  It's cool. 

    Shut up.

Market day and time travelling trunks!

Today was market day here where a bunch of pretty sophisticated large box trucks open up ans spill their wares across three streets. Everything from first and second hand clothes to electronics. Aiden, having forgotten his trunks yesterday in Sperlonga, found these beauties for €3. He says they don't chafe as much as the other longer ones. Time will tell, but for now this is how he is rolling.

p.s. 

We went back to the beach bar and they still had his old shorts.

I like to tie up loose ends in my boring story telling. I figure if you're going to take the time to read the words, the least I can do is come to a conclusion.

Sperlonga shots

Hanging at the beach and it seems like a big storm up north brought in some bigger swells and the cold water to match. We had a good teaching opportunity about reading the waves and rip currents, and using a line-of-sight marker on the beach to maintain your bearings. I think they got it. They were catching sone good ones closer in before it just got too cold and they opted to hunt for beach glass instead.

Sperlonga beach

  The favorite food has been the chocolate croissant. It's been a breakfast staple. It's 10am and this is their second one.

  Sidenote: It's my third, but I'm off camera and therefore don't have to worry about my figure.

Dinner last night

This was a dinner of firsts and likely lasts.

FIRST:

  I can't believe this is the first time I've had bruscetta since I've been here..this is an oversight that went completely unnoticed until the restaurant just brought it out to us  and man, did I miss it. I gotta make it again when I get home. 

LAST:

  You can probably tell by the picture that aiden finally hit the wall when it comes to delicious pizza. 4 times in a week is hit limit. His face made me laugh, I had to snap a picture. He asked why..I told him to remember when he realized one of his limitations.

Simple Italian lunch

Elle=mozzarella di buffalo, tomato and basil on bread drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar all on toasted fresh bread slices.

Aiden=farfalla noodles with his new homemade marinara sauce.

Me=the same as elle with prosciutto on a fresh roll non toasted.

Simple and delicious.

Old gaeta tour

Caught the ever graceful Elliana ascending some church steps.

My favorite is the look on the last one. Classic Elle. 

Like moths to a flame

"Let's sit here so dad can take a picture." is what they have never said..ever.

Advertisement cont.

 Italian swim shorts!!!!

Shed them clothes, SPF up and step back in time with Italian swim shorts!

Sure, they looked goofy before but now they're retro!

Advertisement

  Aren't you tired of living in fear of the big red orb in the sky? 

  Do you remember a time when summer was celebrated with the showing of skin?

  Do you recall when shorts were shorts, capris were capris and never the two did mix?

A dog, a van and a puppet show.

  On our dinner outing, we saw some random things and I took pictures.

The dog looks like a nice boyfriend for a certain neighbor dog back home.

  The van was a suprise, it was in very good shape considering its location and age.

  The puppet show was much later on our way back. It took the kids 10 minutes of watching before they realized the dialog was in Italian. I guess they were a bit tired. Kids these days, just can't hang. 

  We stopped for a drink and gelato after and danced to some Italian karaoke "an djew cahn leeb yer had ahn.." Good stuff.

The bread effect

A typical family before and after trying the bread before dinner.

Trekking 2

We thought it would be cool to go to the top of Monte Orlando, next to the beach, I mean we did it all the time when we lived here.

spoiler alert..

     we didn't make it all the way.

However, we saw people being ants on the beach, a sign that nearly expresses our love of gelato and Elle being the queen of the world.

A bit of a trek

We decided to do some sight seeing and made it down to the grotto and all the way back up too!..no elevator here.

Evening at the beach

After dinner, we decided to take advantage of the empty beach amd let the kids run and run and run!

Siena Palio

After a bit of a rest we went to the provo Palio in the square and had to run the last 100 yards or so to get in as the gates were closing. Surprisingly,  an unprecedented event occured. On the first trial run, a rider was hospitalized and a horse severely injured. After some time, seven of the ten contratas were allowed to race. We then joined Emmanuelle's contrata and attempted to sing and celebrate with roughly 1000 italians in their section of town. We also got to meet again with the priest that performed Aiden's baptism!

Siena!

After a solid night sleep, we get on the train to Siena, had a lovely lunch outside our villa, drank some wine and took a dip in the pool.

Fiddlers elbow

The kids played pool while we had a few drinks while watching the soccer match. No one likes the Dutch. 

Florence, whoa! #3

And of course, the Ponte Vechio.

And a bit of graffiti. 

Forence, whoa! #2

And the square of Michelangelo.

This is the fountain of Neptune. 

Florence, whoa! #1

I found out that I am limited to how many pics I can post at a time. So the next will come in one at a time.

We visited the Duomo.

Milan train station

Cappuccino + croissant = happiness. 

Train to Florence

On our way to Florence and we learned that business class is the way to go!

Milan train station

Cappuccino + croissant = happiness. 

Taxi to train station

Just a quick trip, but I guess 6 hrs wasn't enough for the kids.

I asked Aiden what time it was at home given the local time with the seven hr difference. I swear it took him a full minute. So many sleep deprivation experiments, so little time.

Landed at milan

We are soooooo tired. Plane sleeping is not so very easy.

Can't wait to be completely horizontal!