The Vatican

Our first day in Rome we spent in the Vatican City. We arrived about 9am and got in line to go into St. Peter's. Here's a picture of me in line:

We decided to got to the top of the cuppola or dome. You rode up to the roof on an elevator and the you had toclimb close winding stairs all the way to the top of the dome. Here's a picture of the inside of the dome (sorry it's a little blurry):

There were some 323 steps to the top. And from the top we got great views of Rome, a little hazy but still good views. This picture shows St. Peter's square and Via Della Conciliazione (the street right in front of you). Also you can see the Tiber River at the end of the street. And at the end of the street on the left Castel Santa Angelo. We'll tell you more about the Castle in a later post.

This is a picture of the stairs going back down!

Then we went inside the Cathedral. It was one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever been in. It's very hard to capture in photos but here's a couple to try to show you a small piece of it. This is inside looking at the main nave.

Here is the dome again from the bottom floor:

This is out front, a statue of St. Peter just by his elbow on the left side of the picture you can see the place where the Pope stands to make some of his addresses to the people, mostly on special holidays.

Next we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We spent nearly 3 1/2 hrs all together in there. Erik likes all the details that the audioguides provide and I just go ahead and wait when my feet get too tired. we were not supposed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel and although everyone else was we realized that the pictures just would not have turned out that well as the lighting was pretty poor. Here's a few pics fromt he museum/grounds:

This one is a Roman Statue of one of the Roman Centurians and I loed how deatiled it was. Amazing what they did with stone:

There were many, many more statues and pictures we took of them but we'll move on... Here's a picture of a mummy they had in the Egyptian section of the museum

I never found out exactly what this golden ball was but this is in the courtyard of the museum and you can see a little bit of St. Peter's in the background. I took the picture from the second floor of the Museum. Well that picture won't load so I'll try it again tomorrow.

That's pretty much it for our first day in Rome. Tomorrow we're on to the Colluseum and Old Rome!

More on our trip and pic from Rome

Well, I can finally post again. Last week was crazy for me I worked 5 of 6 days Friday thru Wednesday and then Ginger, Erik's Aunt and his Sister Monika came for a visit. We had a wonderful weekend. I'll post some pics of it soon.

So, where did I leave off... oh yes Sept 29th Wetook a laid back day and hung out took naps, went for a walk with Ulla near a pretty lake in the area, and packed for Rome. No real pics of note from that day.

Rome: We arrived about 3:30pm on Sept 30th and got to our place about 5pm. We stayed ina campground that was huge and had bungalows and suites as well as set up tents for you to rent. When we booked our only choice was a tent so that's what we did. They were pretty nice with a hardwood floor and two cots. They even provided a lock so you could lock them up when you left. Here's a pic of our tent:

Here's the line of tents: (there were over 100)

We didn't sleep the best the first night due to the road and people traffic but we got ear plugs and slept like babies the other four nights we were there.

Stop by tomorrow for the Vatican!

Blog Problems

Well, every time I try to upload a picture I get an error message saying that they know about the problem and are trying to fix it. Sorry!
I'll post again as soon as I can!

Sept 28 and Linderhoff

The next day Sept 28th it was still rainy and cloudy but we set out in the afternoon to visit another castle. All of the castles we have visited in Germany have been the castles of King Ludwig II or his family. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria for some info on the King and his castles. On our trip to Germany in 2005 we visited Neuschwanstien and Howenschwangau. This trip we visited Nymphenburg and Linderhoff as well as Starnberger Lake where they found his body when he died. Here's another good site I found: http://www.german-way.com/ludwig.html

Anyway, we had a great day and we knew that it was snowing in the mountains and we did get a few pictures of the snow. Icking, where Ulla and Arthur live and we spend most of our time, is close to the Alps, deep in Bavaria. So you drive a little bit and you have these gorgeous views!

So we went to visit Linderhoff Castle. It was more of a personal home to King Ludwig and a very small castle. But very ornate and beuatiful. Here's a picture of Ulla and I in front of the pool/fountain out in front of the castle:

Here's a close up of the front of the castle:

We walked the grounds and saw some of the other buildings (none of which I got a very good picture of). The grounds were beautiful and as the weather started clearing up you could see the pretty snow on the mountains. Here's a picture of the lovely scenery.

Here's one of the fountain during it's hourly show:
Check back for more picture and stories of our trip next week!

More on Oktoberfest and Germany UPDATED

Here's a picture of the draft horses with Lady Bavaria in the background.:

Here's the inside of one of the beer houses we went into: (A little smoky, would you say?)

After Oktoberfest Sepp and Ingrid took us to Nymphenburg Castle in Munich. It has expansive gardens and is still a sanctuary for the swans that have been there for hundreds of years. Here's a picture of the castle and some of the castle grounds: (BTW: That castle is MUCH bigger than the little bit I was able to get in the picture.)

And one of the swans: Here is a picture from our coffee/tea stop at the "Palmen Haus":

Overall, we had a great day with Ingrid and Sepp (pronounced like: Zep) even though we can't speak much Germany and they can't speak much English. We get along pretty good! ;-)

More tomorrow....

We're back!

So we made it back from our trip to Germany and Rome last week on Oct 10th at 1am Montana time! It was our 3rd anniversary that day and we slept most of the day!

We arrived in Munich, Germany on Sept 25th about 1:30pm Munich time. I had worked the night before we left and didn't get to sleep before going to the airport and then had about 3-4 hr of a "nap" on the plane from Minneapolis to Amsterdam! But I was doing well. We just rested and hung out with Arthur and Ulla the rest of that day. It was rainy and cold when we got to Germany. The next day we went out to see a few things in the area. We ended up at Bad Tolz and cute Bavarian town that is filled with people when it is warmed. We walked and did a little shopping. Here's a picture of Ulla and I in from of Market straBe(street).

The next day we went to Oktoberfest in Munich with Ingrid and Sepp. It was a huge festival. All the draft horses and their respective beer wagon were out in all their glory. Since Erik and I don't enjoy beer that much we didn't care to sit in the tents and pound downa few but we did have one beer and a pretzel.
Here we are in front of the gates:I must run now! Stop by again for more pics from Oktoberfest and Germany...