italy

September 29th, 2005 by alephnaught

Taormina

We got up late, ate, and walked up to the ancient Greek theatre. This required a pretty long uphill walk, including a long stairway. The theatre faces south, which is a traditional for Greek theatres in Sicily. You can climb all the way to the top of the rear, which unveils beautiful vistas of the […]

September 28th, 2005 by alephnaught

Siracusa and Catania

We woke very early at 5:30 and had breakfast that had been arranged by the hotel (regular breakfast starts at 7:30 and we had to be at the bus stop at 7:40). After eating we walked to the Byzantine Tombs (well, Bizantine Tumbs on the fax from the travel company). These are actually an unmarked […]

September 27th, 2005 by alephnaught

From Naples to Taormina

We woke up and had breakfast. We then couldn’t decide what to do, as we had a 17:35 flight to Catania, so we just walked around the hotel, did a little shopping, stopped for a good lunch at Cito di Santa Brigida, just down from the beautiful old covered shopping area. Our flight was uneventful, […]

Posted in italy, Naples, Taormina, Travel - Foreign, Tags: Naples and Sicily 2005

September 26th, 2005 by alephnaught

Sorrento

We got a late start – Aviva’s eye is swollen every morning and she needs to ice it after breakfast so she can open it fully. At least it doesn’t hurt her. We got directions from a cab driver to the dock at Beverello so we could get a hydrofoil to Sorrento. The ride took […]

Posted in italy, Sorrento, Travel - Foreign, Tags: Naples and Sicily 2005

September 25th, 2005 by alephnaught

Museums in Naples

We had breakfast at the hotel on the 10th floor. The room overlooks the harbor, and the views are striking. We took a cab up to the Museo Nazionale, which houses the archeological treasures from Pompei and Heracleum among others. They allowed photography, so we took a lot of photos. There’s a really nice numismatic […]

September 24th, 2005 by alephnaught

Seeing churches in Naples

We had breakfast and went out hiking – today was church day, and we saw lots of Chiesas. I saw lots of graphiti and lots of posters all over Naples. Aviva had a schedule of when churches opened, but we were right in expecting the reality to be different than the posted times. We stopped […]

September 23rd, 2005 by alephnaught

Arrival in Naples

I’m really looking forward to this vacation – work has been hard recently (but also rewarding to me) and taking a break now is a good thing I think. As usual, I’m bringing some books along, as I love to read while on vacation. We’re lucky – we had enough miles with Northwest to get […]

June 15th, 2005 by alephnaught

Amsterdam and Florence

This trip was a last minute holiday set up to follow leadership training I received at Duin & Kruidberg in Santpoort south of Amsterdam (yes, this is my fifth business trip to Amsterdam this year – you can look at other pages in the travelogue to see where I’ve been). ABN AMRO employees call Duin […]

April 4th, 2000 by electricbob

Art day

Today we did the Uffizi; the word uffizi means office, and it was the office of the government of the Medicis in Firenze. They have a whole room of Botticellis, who is one of my favs. The square inside the Uffizi is packed with artists selling their wares (we bought a small watercolor of the […]