San Tommaso

St. Thomas Aquinas--my patron saint and philosophical hero--is one of the key figures in my conversion to Catholicism.  So it was only fitting that we pilgrimaged to his home town of Aquino and the nearby castle remains of Roccasecca.  No thanks to the Americans in WWII, the castle at Roccasecca no longer exists, but the town of Aquino is still there, although admittedly not many things pertaining to Aquinas remains.  I did see a portion of a castle in Aquino where Aquinas may have lived, as well as the church of St. Maria della Libera, where Aquinas was baptized.  

On a different note, before your next travels, I highly recommend a Garmin Nuvi (a GPS) that is utterly amazing. Type in your destination and it will generally take you the shortest way there, which includes winding, unnamed roads that are often in the middle of a field, and at times only the width of one car.  

Boville

Today we made a pilgrimage to the medieval walled town of Boville.  Although the current town only dates to the early thirteenth-century, archaeological finds show that the area was inhabited since the 10th century BC.  With only 3,357 houses, I was surprised to find no fewer than 7 churches within the walls and 5 outside the walls (granted, they didn't measure up to St. Peter's Basilica).  From what I can tell, there are also three active convents there, which, praise God, appeared to be thriving.  It is a beautiful village, where we enjoyed cappuccino and gelato.  

Sacred Site

Yesterday we went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major.  The church was incredible, and there was a piece of wood from the manger of Jesus.

Going to the Doctor

A word of advice:  only go to the doctor in Italy if you absolutely have to.  Otherwise, wait until you are back in the U.S.  Today we went to see the eye specialist in Rome for a post-operative check up.  The appointment was set for 9:15 am, so we got up early, rushed to the train station to get the early train to Rome, and arrived at the doctor's office right on time. . . .  FIVE HOURS LATER . . . we are finally done!  I can't believe we spent 5 hours in a waiting room.  When we finally went into the office, we spent about 20 minutes with the doctor.  All I can say is--I hope we never have to do that again!

The original plan was to see a few sights in Rome and go to Mass at St. Peter's at noon.  But when we left at 2:30, we needed to eat lunch, then we went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, and then it was time to get back to the station to catch our train.  It was a hot, frustrating day, but it all turned out well.  We still got to go to Rome.  We saw a beautiful basilica and said some prayers.  The kids got to stay home with Marisa.  They had a great day.  They even got to go swimming in a little kiddie pool.  Another day, another new experience.

The View from our Terrace

We are in Veroli, and the view is mountainous.  We are enjoying dinner Al Fresco every evening and this is what we see.  Almost everyday we have pasta, just so we feel more Italian.  But sometimes we barbecue, too!  it has been very hot here, so we try to escape the heat by staying indoors.  Tomorrow, Lloyd has his appointment at the retinal specialist in Rome, so we will be leaving early in the morning.  I expect another hot day.

to the beach!

Today we went to the beach at Sperlonga.  It is on the Southwestern coast of Italy.  It was a nice, clean beach.  The day was hot and the kids all got sunburned.  We were a little worried about finding a "free" beach and not spending too much money, but it turned out not to be a problem.  On the way back, we decided to let the Nuvi find us the shortest route home, which turned out to be all back roads, sometimes very narrow, and up and down mountains.  Since it was a fairly short trip, it was pretty interesting and we got some beautiful photo ops from it.  

Roma--The Eternal City

We finally made it.  They don't call Rome the eternal city for nothing.  I think one of the reasons is because it seems to take an eternity to go from one side to the other, especially when you are walking.  Why we walked, when we had metro passes, I don't know.  However, we managed to walk from the Colesseum (complete with Roman soldiers) to the Spanish Steps before we called it quits for the day.  I must say that the kids did surprisingly well, especially Maggie, who was quite the trooper.  The gelato by the Trevi Fountain was great.  However, it was a very, very hot day.   

Veroli and Trisulti

Today we went to a very old mountain town called Veroli.  It was very hilly, rocky and quaint.  We saw two gorgeous old churches with many relics inside.  Markets in the morning sold everything from quilts, vegetables, fish, meat and breads.  We bought some little donut-like pastries covered with sugar that were very good but would have been even better with an espresso or cafelatte.  When it started to rain, we got back in the car and drove to Trisulti--an old Cistercian abbey.  Here is the website with many pictures if you want to see it.  http://www.casamari.it/old/trisulti_english.html

When we got there, it was closed for lunch--that is from noon until 3:30pm.  Siesta time.  We are still getting used to that!  Everyday brings new opportunities!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sunday we got lost in a small mountain town.  The roads were unbelievably steep and narrow.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the scenery was beautiful.

Casa Mari:  we stopped in for a quick visit this afternoon and stayed for Mass.  There were about 15 people there for Mass, and since it was all in Italian, I don't know what was said, but everyone who was there greeted each other warmly and I think it was a Mass for someone in their family who had died.  I felt like an intruder, but no one is ever made to feel that way at church!  It was truly beautiful and cool to think that St. Bernard had been there before. 

Casamari

Today we visited a Cistercian abbey called Casamari (somehow related to or built near the house of Marius, a Roman consul). It is a beautiful monastery near Veroli. How the monks built the monastery 800 years ago is a marvel to me.  St. Bernard visited the monastery.  To see more about the monastery, go to:  http://paradoxplace.com and click on Casamari.  

First Day in Europe

After arriving in Germany on a sleepless red-eye flight, we found a train to Freiburg.  While on the train, the kids met a girl and her father from Russia.  We invited her to play go fish with us.  They had a good time and she learned a new game and a few new words.  Our kids did not try to learn any Russian!

Our friends, Martina and Jaouad, invited us into their home, where we stayed for a week.  We visited several small villages, along with the big city of Freiburg, where we walked around the downtown area and saw the inside of the Cathedral.

The small towns of Germany have so much charm, and we even spent one day at a "Stadt Fest", which is the town's special festival day celebrating their 1200th anniversary!  There were lots of fun activities set up for children, lots of wonderful food booths, along with free-flowing wine and beer!  I even shared a glass of wine with a Roman soldier.

Since Martina and Jaouad live in the black forest near the French border, we spent one day in the French city of Colmar.  It was another beautiful city with interesting architechture.  Some of my pictures were taken on a video camera, which I can't upload while I am here.

While in Germany, we bought a car that would fit all 5 of us plus luggage.  It will help us to get comfortably from one place to another.  

We started on our journey to Italy.  at the first filling station, we inadvertently put diesel in the gas tank, since we couldn't read italian.  There were 3 pumps: sensa plomb, diesel, and gasolio.  Well, we didn't know what sensa plomb was, we knew what diesel was, so we thought gasolio sounded most like what we needed.  All the pump-hoses were the same size.  Within seconds of filling the tank, the engine started smoking.  So we went back to the mechanic, and tried to explain what happened.  There was one attendant who knew enough English to tell us that we had put diesel in the tank and they would take it out for us.  It was a costly error, to say the least.  The car is driving fine now and we will never make that mistake again!

Italy is beautiful, but the language barrier is difficult, so we are trying to learn a few words to help us along.

Welcome!

Welcome to our page!  With all our travels this summer, we thought this would be a great time to start a blog with lots of posts and pictures for you to enjoy!

I will be posting more soon.