In case you are wondering, biting your nails waiting for the news – Conan did come home around 1 a.m. before we left the next morning. I went down and opened the door, shut off all the lights, and just quietly called him for about 15 minutes and he finally ran in the door. What a weirdo.
Then, the next morning we set off on our trip. We left at morning naptime to get a few hours driving in before we had to stop. Our goal was to get to Venice that first day. Those of you who have been on road trips with little children before are probably laughing!! Oh, how naïve we were. We were just north of Rome and I said, “Uh, yea, we aren’t going to make it to Venice today. How about we stop in Bologna?” Venice is a 7-hour drive for normal people. Not people who have to stop for an hour every 2-½ hours. We made it to Bologna in 7 hours, though.
Luckily, Jack and I have the same travel style where we don’t like “schedules” and things like “plans.” We just had our Italy guidebook and picked a hotel out of it, gave ‘em a call, and got a room. We drove into town with no idea where we were going so we just headed for the center, then stopped at a driving school and then a bookstore and asked for directions. We were really close!
We spent the evening walking around the piazza, having a beer and eating tapas, and looking at UFOs.
The next morning we took off for Venice. When we were about 20 km out of town we picked another hotel out of the book and called. The first one we tried was full, but the second had room for €135. We said that was too expensive so they gave it to us for €100.
Venice, once you get there, is not at all like I expected. I always thought it would be smelly and dirty with trash and gunk floating in the water. It is not like that at all. It is clean and didn’t smell gross. After dumping our stuff in our closet, er, I mean room, we headed out to sip wine and eat panninis whle listening to the Beach Boys. It seems like no matter where you go they are always playing an odd selection of American music.
After that we headed out to San Marco square. There were millions of pigeons everywhere – and vendors selling pigeon food for €1. But, ha ha, we have a baby, so that means I have a pack of Gerber fruit puffs in my bag. Free pigeon food! They had a little feast while we took the obligatory “pigeon picture.” Sammi didn’t really know what to think about those guys. We watched the gondolas, but they are REALLY expensive so we did the cheap €5 grand cannal tour on a ferry. Then we walked all around Vencie was fun and worth the stop.
The next day we headed off for Berchtesgaden, Germany. If you ever watched the Band of Brothers you may be familiar with it. We wanted to go see the Eagles Nest. I was afraid it would take us DAYS to get there because we had to go through the mountains to get there. Fortunately, you really do go THRU the mountains so it was only a fairly short drive from Venice. Some of those tunnels were 6 kms long! We crossed over the border into Austria and I saw a guy standing by his truck – and I was struck because he had BLONDE hair. That would become the norm over the next week, and after all this time it was odd to be in a place where people, lots of people, had naturally blonde hair. Creepily, I also saw one lady with black “goth” hair – with blonde roots. That was weird.
We found a nice place to stay in Berchtesgaden, although we were the youngest guests by far. Tour buses for elderly people seemed to favor it. We asked the desk people how to get to the Eagle’s Nest. They said to ask them the next day. We asked all around and NO ONE wanted to tell us. “Oh, why don’t you go see….?” They kept trying to get us to go see the other attractions in the area. Also, there were no signs to it, no ads for it - unlike all the other things in the area. Like it was a secret they didn’t really want you to know about. They don’t even call it the Eagle’s Nest in German. They call it the Kehlsteinhaus because it was supposed to be a teahouse for Hitler. If you go there, it will help if you know that so you can find it on the map. The next morning we asked the old hotel guy how to get there. He still didn’t want to tell us. “Today is not a good day for that. Too cloudy for a good view. Go to the salt mines.” We insisted so he finally told us – and it was easy once you knew – but even once on the route there were still no signs leading the way.
It was very interesting and worth the trip. The clouds cleared up somewhat and the view was gorgeous. It is much smaller than we expected, though. Oddly enough, all the tours are required to be in English. No other languages are authorized. Probably part of the deal they had to make when we agreed not to blow it up or something.
On this trip we realized that Sammi won’t eat baby food. Refuses to have it stuffed down her gullet. Luckily, in Germany there was lots of table food she could eat. We also discovered Gelbwurst. It is a local Bavarian favorite for kids and Sammi loved it. It is basically bologna made from veal and pork, mildly spiced with nutmeg, white pepper and ginger. I can’t find it here in Italy but keep looking at the commissary. She also liked the dumplings with sauce that they had on the kiddie menus.
On Friday we went to Oberammergau, our destination for the next week. Jack had a class at the NATO school. Our room was at a landhaus and was really an apartment with a kitchen and 2 bedrooms. It was really nice, and way cheaper than any of our hotel rooms so far! Oberammergau is a typical Bavarian village, so it looks like a page right out of Hansel and Gretel. The cows wear actual bells so you can hear them coming home. Even the people dress in the lederhosen and bar wench dresses on a daily basis – and not just because of their jobs, it’s what they wear.
I had never been to Germany before and I never thought I would like it or the food. But, the food was delicious, not to mention the beer. I KNEW I would like the beer. The beer was just a wonderful as I imagined it would be. Mmmmm, beeeeeerrrrr. It was actually a soothing vacation for me because it was like a mountain vacation back home. It was more “normal” culturally for me than anywhere else I have been lately. The restaurants had “normal” hours – from 5 pm to 9 pm. Basically, they were closing just when Italian restaurants are opening up! It was nice to be able to go out to eat and be home by 8:30 to put Sammi to bed.
Maybe it was just growing up in a town of German descendents. The cadence of voices sounded like gatherings back home, even if it was a different language. The sheds looked the same, the kitsch it people’s houses looked the same, the food was the same as back home, the people even looked the same. Everyone looked vaguely familiar. In fact, they looked so much like me that Jack’s boss’ wife saw “me” downtown one day, pushing a pram (she’s British, that’s what she said), and walking my little dog. She smiled, waved, and yelled, “Helloooo!!!” and whatnot. Only when “I” waved back and returned her greeting in German did she realize it was not me after all, just some local German woman.
It was a fun trip – we went to see Ludwig’s castle while we were there, too. It wasn’t a medieval castle as it is only 120 years old. I mean, he even had a telephone in there – but it was neat. Also, everywhere we went people took pictures of Sammi in her sling. In Italy all the Asian tourists stopped to take pictures of her. In Germany, the Asians and even a couple Americans stopped to take her picture. I thought it was kind of weird. I mean, I think she is cute but random tourists? Must be the whole sling thing, too. That thing is a lifesaver over here as strollers are either banned or useless because of all the steps. We also brought along the little potty and that worked great, too. The rest stops either had awesome kids bathrooms, with little potties for them and great changing tables, or nothing. For those places we just put the potty on the hood of the car and let her go there. We didn’t even use a whole pack of disposable diapers on the trip. Now that we are home I am down to washing diapers only once a week, not every two or three days anymore. Yayyyy, little potty, how we love thee.
As much fun as the drive to Germany was we knew on the way back we would have to stop every 2 ½ hours for 1 hour like on the trip up. But after 2 weeks we were ready to be home. So, we did that parent thing and left at 7 pm so Sammi would sleep the whole way. Then, we drove for 11 ½ hours all the way home. It was good to be home!!
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