Lunch in Amsterdam

People, if you haven't been, this needs to be at the top of your list. Save your pennies, buy your travel book and go. We are loving Croatia. The first thing we noticed was all of the welcome signs and friendliness of the locals (in spite of the thousands of tourists that arrive everyday- many for just a few hours off the cruise ships). Three important historical things to know about Dubrovnik. #1 They were an independant republic for centuries, they abolished slavery in the 1400s and their motto has been Libertas (freedom) for centuries. #2 there was a massive earthquake in 1667 that destroyed most of the old town and remains prominent in their historical memory #3 in 1991 they were under seige for three months, with no electricity, running water, or telephone. They withstood the seige partially because they had access to water from ancient fountains and aquaduct system. We filled our water bottles daily from the water source that kept them alive for three months....

There are a ton of stray cats in Dubrovnik. At first Beth was worried that they might be hungry....

Matthew and Liz bought this house six years ago. They think it was once the bishop's house but was pretty run down when the got it. They have worked really hard over the years fixing it up and discovering more of it's history. There are parts of the house that were once part of the old city walls. Matthew has restored some of original arches that had been filled in. While we were there he was using old tiles and stones dug up from the pool area to built a new terrace floor. We really appreciated being hosted by family in the middle of our trip.

We had a welcome break of five days at Katherine's cousin's summer home in the Marche region of Italy. Our very first night we were hosted by an Italian family who also have a family home in this little village of San Pietro Castel. A bit of English, a bit of Italian, two dictionaries and an 11year old who was studying english at school (plus a lot of sign language) meant we could amost understand each other. Well, a little. The food was amazing. antipasto, lasagna with tomato, lasagna with pesto. veal stuffed with ham and mushroom, vegetable ragu, potatoe with rosemary. Fruit course. Dessert (cake and ice cream... it was Nono's 81st birthday). coffee and two kinds of liquour......none of these courses were optional. The two kids showed up the next day to bake with cousin Liz, there was way more eating of batter then baking. Seriously these kids were eating already formed, uncooked cookies from the tray! 5 min in, Liz was called away to the phone, which left...

To continue with the theme of transportation. Yesterday was our big day trip out of Florence and into Siena. We chose a sunny day, made sure the museums were not closed on Mondays. Figured out the bus schedule, and headed south (in our front row seats on the coach). We are starting to worry.....is it us? While we were sitting on the side of the road in our broken down bus, we flipped to the Sienna section of our Guide Book only to read the boldly highlighted box feature on "Palio". Every August 16th for hundreds of years, Sienna has had a horse race in the central square. Each of the horses represent one of 10 neighbourhoods and they race for glory (in true medieval fashion). Thousands of people (locals, tourists, curious and party goers) flock to Siena for this event... thousands. Everything closed down early, we managed to sneak into one museum just before closing. We are sure Siena is lovely, we didn't see any of it...... did we mention thousands of people? On to Assis...

little girl is gone and we are back.... Next, Flight from London to Rome. We're buckled in, pushed away from the gate, starting toward the runway when the announcement came on that there was a problem with the tire. 30 min later, problem diagnosed, the tire is flat (even though it had just been changed), they fix that tire only to discover, in intervals of every 30 minutes that the other tire was flat..... This would be frustrating except inside the cabin two Canadians had made friends with the flight attendant. Not only did she sneak two bottles of single malt scotch from First Class (with a whisper of "don't tell my boss") but she lent her cell phone so we could phone our hotel in Rome to tell them we would be two hours late. 10 minutes later the Flight Attendant came racing down the aisle holding a ringing cell phone saying "I think this is for you". We love British Airways!

This is not complaining, just sharing our experience of planes, trains and automobiles.... Let's start with the bus trips. We got a great deal - only £7 for both of us to get from Glasgow to Manchester. For the most part, the trip was great. We rode through 'fair trade' towns (whole towns that certified as Fair Trade! It's not just for coffee and chocolate anymore), stopped at an amazing local, farm fresh food rest stop (take that Tim Hortons and Wendy's) and had front row seats....that made the encounter between one of the coach drivers and the pedestrian he almost ran over near a bus terminal that much more, well, intense. If it wasn't for the other very large coach driver who was sitting in the way, we thought the cursing, swearing, creative-body-language expressing driver was going to hop out and beat the equally raging almost squished pedestrian. Up until that point, we thought this one was the nice driver...certainly less cranky than the larger driver...

We titled this post "the Romans" instead of just "rome" because we needed to slip in the picture of the Romans Baths in Bath England. We were very fortunate to be able to tour the Bath's just as the sun was setting and the gas lights were coming on.... beautiful, fascinating and soooooo old. It is still keeping Beth up at night trying to figure out how the Romans managed (or Project Managed) everything. Moving on to Rome.... Ruins, the Forum, etc.

God loves Canada (rainbow over Trafalgar Square and St. Martin's in the Field) (L) one for Beth's dad... Our reflection Home cooking with family

After being hosted by Katherine's lovely family (thanks family!), we hit the big city - the really big city of London! The first thing we did was ride in a London cab. We couldn't resist seeing "a show in London". We got great seats to Les Mis - we loved every second of it. Not that we regret it, but now, a week later we can't get those songs out of our head! Even Italian radio isn't helping. We saw The Tower, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, but a highlight was watching the chagning of the guard at Buckingham Palace, with an Aussie couple we met. We were all dodging the Bobbies who kept trying to get us off the wall of the monument. Katherine's favourite moment was when she realized that the music the band was playing was all theme music from James Bond films... You can see all sorts of great pictures of this event in any tour book or online, but we thought you'd appreciate a picture of the crowd so you don't think it's all fun and games being a to...