Italy Tour 2008 - Day 6 - Ravenna & Padua

En route from Assisi to Venice we stopped through near Ravenna and Padua to see Basiclias along the way. We stopped in Classis, several miles out of Ravenna to visit St Apollinare’s Basicilla. St. Apollinare is reported to have been made Bishop of Ravenna by St. Peter himself. In the first century, the area was largely Pagan and resisted the teachings of St. Apollinare. A number of years of capture, torture, release, and escape, after twenty six years serving as Bishop of Ravenna, St Apollinare, became a martyr for his faith.

Padoua was a little town with one heckuva church. The mosaics in the church are notable for they tell the story of the Transfiguration of Christ. With 12 white sheep, symbolically representing the 12 apostles, and Christ transfigured beneath a cross with his face in the center. Moses and Elijah, prophets from the Old Testament, are represented in mosaics in the sky, and in the upper Arch are the four Saints: John represented by an Eagle, Matthew, an angel, Mark, the Lion, Luke, the lamb. The church has ten Archbishops of Ravenna entombed in sarcophagi, carved in deep bas relief figures on greek marble.



Ravenna's known for some of the most prolific mosaic's in the region.

Moving onto Venice next =)

Italy Tour 2008 - Day 5 - Napoli, Cassino & Assissi

We literally landed our boat at Napoli harbor and got on the bus and drove away...



Our stop on the way to Assissi was a Cemetery, Cassino. Well manicured and similar to Arlington in my mind.



The church at Assissi had a number of frescos and stained glass. The area was high atop a hill with a small castle at the peak. Views and more views...

Italy Tour 2008 - Day 4 - Capri

The Island of Capri is where the "stars" hang out... Getting there required a 20 minute boat trip and a ride up the Funiculare (basically scaling the mountain to the top! We spent 2 nights and the first evening's dinner left a lot to be desired.

High end shops, lavish gardens and tons of interesting "textures" surrounded us. On the second day we ventured north to visit Ana Capri where street vendors and gelato dealers (it is addictive) were in full effect.



Ana Capri also has a single person chair lift that takes you up to the very top of the islands where a 360-degree view of the islands is possible. Absolutely breathtaking.



NOTE: These are rediculously short because I can't remember much after so many days and so much architecture and art.

Italy Tour 2008 - Day 3 - Pompeii & Sorrento

Alloooooooo... Pompeii is amazing... I'm no history buff but the place is simply overwhelming. The ruins and elements uncovered were something to behold. Of course I was snapping away and took some of the best photos of my life... only to delete them promptly upon "upload."

Our tour guide, Enrico, was one of the best we had for local tours. He was charming as well as enlightening and historically informative. He painted pictures of the time, events, and day to day life in Pompeii prior to the disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried the city of Pompeii in 79 A.D.

Since the Italian language has no H, there is no sound for an H, so his pronunciation of hello became….. AL LOOOOO “aL-LOOOO” which became a greeting we all used everytime we ran into others from our group anywhere. We would scatter away from him photographing everything from the excavated building, streets, stones, and remnants of mosaics and frescoes, and hear an echoing, ALLOOO, I am over here….as he tried to gather us back together.





After Pompeii we drove to Sorrento. A quaint town on the coast. Mom and I had lunch at the end of an alley with Paulo the owner. Wood inlay is from this area and they had TONS of it. Beautiful!

Italy Tour 2008 - Day 2 - Rome

Upon arrival in Rome, we met up with our tour agency and our host, Martin Hirsch. All appeared to be going according to plan... until a couple called that were already staying at the Hotel Cicerone to advise us that our reservations (for 30 people) were non-existant. Our tour guide, Anna, transformed into travel agent/crisis fixer in an instant. This is her with the rose embellished umbrella leading us like Mary Poppins =)



This day was a scheduled “free” day, but we had to remain together until we knew where we would be staying. So our free day in Rome ended up being a day on and off the bus at different previously unplanned places until our room situation was squared away. Our first stop around 11am was near the Borghese Museum at the Piazza del Popolo. Just inside the Large Porta Flaminia gate, was an obelisk from the Sun Temple in Heliopolis, Egypt, which Augustus brought to Rome. It had previously been on display at Circus Maximus. As we walked toward the restaurant, we saw two large domed structures. Not sure what they were.
We walked though the oval Piazza to a restaurant for Champagne and apertives, while Anna worked out our hotel reservations. We ended up at the Ritz Grand Hotel... not a bad tradeoff. The ceilings are all incredibly high, and our room walls were rich padded red silk brocade. The building was marble lined with marble stairs and walls. Even looking at the artistic placement of each marble piece was a treat as you could tell they were artisans familiar with marble sediment and compression patterns. After checking into our hotel, and a quick shower, we met again for a trip to Piazza Navona. The Piazza Navona is a beautiful square with wonderful artisan shops, restaurants, and bars, and the square is filled with artists, musicians and street vendors. First experience with Italian desserts….at Tre Scalini for a Tartufo Artigianale. Chocolate and whipped crème..indescribably the best dessert of mom's life. Alongside our table a guitar playing street performer was busy playing renditions of Hotel California and Another Brick in the Wall. Odd... but enjoyable.

Wandered a bit and took some pictures (couldn't pass up the creepy clown for Vinnie.)

Now it's bedtime as we have a 6am wakeup call and 7am departure onto Pompeii.

Italy Tour 2008 - Day 1 - Travel

So... I'm sitting at the airport. A nor'easter is screwing up the east coast airlines so no telling when I'll get to Philly.

Brian got me a new camera so I played with it a bit. I have books and I'm fighting the impulse to work on work stuff =)

Maybe I'll go look for another bunny photo for gtalk. That would be productive.

(later, from Philly)
My new bunny is hysterical... Mom's DCA flight was cancelled. Slight panic as the only flight they could book her on had little chance of being on time and risked missing the Rome flight completely. On Brian's advice, she booked it to grab the fast train from Union Station.

Great plan to get HER to Rome. Luggage is another issue altogether. In any event, she made it to Philly.

(even later, from Rome)
Our flight to Rome was delayed about an hour. At one point in an attempt to get more than 5 consecutive minutes asleep I actually crawled on the floor in front of my seat facing backwards to hug my blanket and lean on my seat. Surprisingly comfortable considering the cramped conditions... that is until someone stepped on me.

Roatan - Day 2

Our first day of diving started this morning after a big breakfast and a dive orientation meeting. We completed a checkout dive on the house reef just off the shore. You can see out entry and exit point from the CoCo View Beach Webcam. The orientation dive required a couple of skills (mask flood and clear, buoyancy check, and regulator ditch and recovery. We then toured the two walls and wreck between them. It's great to have some nice diving right off the beach... we're sure to hit some night dives out there!

After the orientation dive and lunch, we loaded up on the boats for the afternoon diving. We hit Kana and then dropped off at CoCo View Wall on the way back in (one of the shore dives at the resort). The nice thing about the drop-off dive is you can start much further out than you would ever hit in a round trip from the beach, so there are definitely new sights to see.

We will work on the pictures for tomorrow's post, so stay tuned!

Roatan - Day 1

We arrived safely on Saturday afternoon after an uneventful set of flights (Roanoke to Atlanta to Roatan). We made our way from the surprisingly busy airport to CoCo View Resort. They had two vans waiting for us, plus a truck for our luggage. We are traveling with a group of 15 from Diving Enterprises, our dive shop and friends from Roanoke, VA.

We found ourselves on a small boat landing with an empty boat slip. Within 10 minutes a boat arrived to take us to the resort. CoCo View is a small resort located on an isolated piece of land on the southern coast of Roatan. The boat is really the only way to the resort, so security seems to somewhat take care of itself, although they do have a security staff on the island as well.

We were given a brief orientation and sent to check out our accommodations. We are in "Bungalow B", a rustic wooden room over the water. We'll have pictures posted soon, but here is one for now (click for a larger view). We'll post more details tomorrow once the diving begins!

Nassau - Day 8 (Andros Trip)

So on Tuesday we made our way to the small Andros Town airport. We boarded the small commuter turbo-prop and flew back to Nassau at 4:30p. After the "long wait" for luggage (less than 5-minutes from landing) we got our luggage and grabbed a cab to Paradise Island.

Our cab driver, Phillip, was very friendly and knowledgeable, and provided a thorough driving tour on our way across the island. It's about a 30-minute ride from the airport to Paradise island. We had a chance to see Cable Beach and Bay Street, two of the main tourist draws in this area. He pointed out Eddie Murphy's private island, the church where Anna Nicole Smith's funeral was held, (and the hospital where her baby girl was born on the return cab ride) and suggested a number of restaurants along the way. We scheduled to have him pick us up for the return trip on Wednesday at 1:00p, and he even arrived 10 minutes early!

We checked in at the Comfort Suites on Paradise Island around 5:30p. It is immediately adjacent to the Atlantis resort, and they provide their guests with a ID card to gain full access to Atlantis. This was a much better way to go, since it was almost half of the price of the cheapest Atlantis room.

Since we still had a bit of daylight, we went over to Atlantis to see some of the aquarium features. Huge doesn't really capture the size of Atlantis... and they are STILL BUILDING! 4 more towers are planned, adding to the two older towers and two gigantic new towers that already exist. They employ 8500 people now, and each tower probably adds another 1000 jobs to the area.

We started our tour in the marina, where you can dock your $20,000,000 yacht right next the the casino and luxury shopping. We made our way through the casino and to the Predator Tank. They had some great fish in this exhibit that you could view from above, or through a dark tunnel that enhanced the eerie atmosphere of observing some of the largest predators in the ocean. They had Goliath Grouper, Barracuda, several specials of Shark, and even Octopus (in it's own small tank). This was a fascinating exhibit, and given more time here we would have planned to observe one of the feedings.

We made our way through the resort to check out the second large marine tank. On the way we passed "lagoons" that had schools of cownose rays, 10 ft hammerhead sharks swimming in the shallows, stingrays, and even a pool with several large Spotted Eagle Rays. Underground at the base of one of the towers is a piece tourist propoganda referred to as "The Dig". This is supposedly the site they uncovered during construction that is the ruins of Atlantis. They have artifacts including alien looking diving suites, and even their own souvenir store. It's a fun story that the kids really got into... and believe us, there were a LOT of kids running around.

Throughout the Dig, they have included several small tanks with marine critters, such as Spiny Lobster, Green Moray Eels, Jellyfish, Seahorses, and Grouper. The tanks are consistent with the theme as most include artifacts from Atlantis. However, the main feature of the dig running thought the tunnel system is a series of large viewing windows into the primary marine tank. They had large schools of Jacks (Bar, Black, Crevalle, Horse-eye), various large Grouper and Snapper, Stingrays, Angelfish, Grunts, Spotted Eagle Rays, Guitarfish... the list goes on.

However, the premier tank guests were three Giant Manta. There were two smaller Manta with an estimated 6 foot wingspan, and one large male over 10 foot tip to tip! Once he reaches 14 foot the will release him back to the ocean, as they can reach up to 29 foot in the wild. These are amazing creatures that are graceful to watch as they circled the tank. They were definitely worth the effort to come and see!

After our tour, we headed bank to our hotel and went out to dinner at Anthony's Grill, which is just across the street. The food was good; we had cold conch salad as an appetizer and a mixed seafood for our main entrees. After dinner, we went back to the room for an early nights sleep so we could get an early start to see the rest of Atlantis.

After grabbing a bite at the continental breakfast in the morning, we left our luggage at security and headed back to Atlantis. We visited the remaining lagoons we did not see on Tuesday. We saw Sea Turtles, Bonnethead Sharks, Nurse Sharks, Rays, Starfish, and a painfully slow race between two conch. We toured the Predator and Manta tanks and took some photos along the way to capture the resort.

We grabbed a bite to eat in the marina, then headed back to the Hotel to gather out luggage and meet Phillip for our ride back to the Airport. The great thing about flying back out of the Bahamas is that you clear US Customs at the Nassau airport, so when you hit the ground you just grab you luggage and go. We had no issues, and made it home by 7:00p.

The cats were attention starved when we arrived; we got the Dogs the next day at lunch. Everyone is OK and it's nice to be home... but we do miss the lazy dive days on Andros!

Andros/Nassau - Day 7

Today was our final day at Coral Caverns Dive Resort (for THIS trip!) We slept in a little later, then had breakfast before packing our things. We really enjoyed our time with Mark and Lucia. They have a great foundation and we expect they will continue to develop Coral Caverns into an ideal dive resort.

Looking back on our time with them, we recognized some key points that make this place special. When riding out to the reefs, we never really saw another boat. The local Bahamians do fish these waters, but only what is needed to support the small population of Andros. This is why we consistently saw larger fish life than any of the other destination we have visited. The Barracuda and other large predators are present on every dive since there is so much available food.

I didn't think of it at the time, but it is rare that we have completed a series of dives without picking up some trash on the reef. We found not a single piece of trash...

The diving was very easy. The shallow site called "The Burbs" was the only time we ever experienced a current, and that was simply due to the falling tide. Even then I would only call it a light current and it was very manageable. However, you can easily find some advanced or technical dives if you prefer, such as deep wall diving or cave diving. And with the inland and ocean blue holes, the variety is outstanding. The best apect is all of these options are within a few miles of the dive resort, so there are no long boat rides. And speaking of boat rides, with the exception of during a storm, the water is extremely calm and flat, with minimal waves or swells. Getting TO the sites is also as easy as it can be.

Well, the only thing left to write about is Nassau... The contrast between the islands is simply staggering.