Reitz Family Web

Photos from Italy Trip

Hi - special greetings to all of our new Rick Steves tour friends! I’m finally finished editing photos from our Italy trip! I ended up selecting and publishing about 400 pictures, out of about 2800 exposures I took.

There are several ways to see our photos:

The best way: Click here to browse our full set of photos on Google’s free PicasaWeb photo-sharing service, which is where all our photos are actually stored. Here you can view, download, search - even order prints online.

Other ways: 1) Click on Our Photo Albums above to view all photo albums here on our family web site (no printing or downloading), or 2) read thru individual posts below and click on each embedded photo album to view them.

Italy - (Extra) Day 18, Ostia

Italy - Lido di Ostia9 pictures

So we got to the airport in Rome, after carefully checking in for our flight online the day before. I had checked the web to verify our flight was on time – and Northwest sent me text messages assuring me everything was as scheduled. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the airport and found that EVERYONE on our flight had been BUMPED. It seems the same flight the previous day WAS cancelled, and we were all being replaced with the previous day’s passengers. We were herded onto buses, and shuttled off to be “prisoners” at some cheesy airport hotel for an extra 24 hours.

We arrived at the “Airport Palace Hotel” and – after working myself through the stages of Anger, Grief, and Denial – we discovered that we were actually “stuck” in a pretty nice place. Turns out, the Rome airport is near the coast. Our cheesy hotel was in the Rome suburb of Lido di Ostia, which happens to be a really nice beach resort on the Mediterranean. So, making the most of a bad situation, we spent the extra day hanging out near the beach & enjoying the sun. That evening we saw one of the most gorgeous sunsets ever - some great photo ops!

Northwest ferried in an extra plane to take us home on Monday. That was fun, too – the gate agents at the airport all became computer hackers, as they attempted to see who could figure out how to issue boarding passes for our “non-existent” flight number.  Even more fun, since these were all Delta employees (Northwest & Delta recently merged) trying to subvert the Northwest reservation system (which they didn’t know) into doing something it wasn’t supposed to do. After 1.5 hours, one bright agent managed to print one boarding pass, and the entire terminal erupted into applause. Boarding passes were finally printed, we actually boarded a plane, and eventually made it home.

Italy - Rome

Italy, Rome55 pictures

Pictures from our Italy trip.

Travel Tip: 4-port USB charger

This was one of the best purchases I made prior to our Italy trip - a Lenmar 4-port USB charger. Many - if not most - of our electronics now have standard +5V USB ports for charging. With this little gizmo, a single outlet could simultaneously charge 2 iPhones, a Zune, and a Nintendo DS. Added bonus - this version comes with interchangeable electrical plugs, so it natively works with either US or European power outlets.

Italy - Orvieto

Italy - Orvieto36 pictures

Pictures from our Italy trip.

Italy - Assisi

Italy - Assisi9 pictures

Italy - Siena

Italy - Siena42 pictures

Italy - the Cinque Terre

Italy - Cinque Terre36 pictures

Italy - Pisa

Italy - Pisa6 pictures

Italy - Florence

Italy - Florence40 pictures

Italy - Venice

Italy - Venice77 pictures

Forgot to post Venice… Pictures from our Italy Trip. Click the small picture to browse the entire photo album.

Italy – the Dolomites

On Sunday we left Varenna and Lake Como headed northeast to Italy’s Dolomite Alps region. Tour bus is big, clean, comfortable, and driven by Paul from the Netherlands.

We made a stop in Bolzano to see Utzi the Iceman, the centerpiece of the South Tyrol Archeological Museum. This is a perfectly-preserved 5000 year old man, found frozen in a glacier in 1991 by a couple of hikers. Amazing detail and craftsmanship shown in his clothing, tools, and weapons – implies a level of civilization I didn’t think existed in central Europe in 3000 BC. Sorry, no pictures – photos not allowed in the museum. Here’s a couple snaps from around Bolzano town:

Our home base in the South Tyrol (the region Italy won from Austria in WW1) was Kastelruth (or Casselrotto, everything here has dual German/Italian names). Much nicer hotel room this time at the Hotel Wolf, lots of room and a deck with mountain view.

Spent our time here hiking in the Alpi di Suisi – Europe’s largest alpine meadow, at around 6000 ft elevation. Here’s some photos:

Star Wars Villa

Being a total geek, Jim couldn’t pass up a short side trip to Villa del Balbianello – featured in Star Wars Attack of the Clones. Carol & Emilie took the ferry back to our hotel instead. For some reason, they thought getting some Gelato and taking a nap beat out Star Wars – go figure.

This well-restored grand villa and gardens on Lake Como was the stand-in for Queen Amidala’s ancestral home on the beautiful planet Naboo. If I remember the movie correctly, Anekin and Padme were married under the tree on this plaza, below:

Here are some more snaps from this beautiful villa:

Lake Como

We officially started our tour in the town of Varenna, on the eastern shore of Lake Como. Few places  on Earth are as stunningly beautiful as Lake Como. Steep mountains, azure water, colorful villages, and grand villas make a lasting impression. Pine forests mix with palm trees, and swans glide lazily past the shore.
 

We stayed at the Villa Cipressi Hotel – the yellow building in the 3rd picture above. Built around an old mansion, the hotel has beautiful gardens and grounds. Some of their rooms are nicer than others, though. We ended up in an auxiliary building, reached thru a thick medieval gate for which we were given a separate key. We quickly nicknamed our dark, cavernous room “the Dungeon”. We had no view, and were right above the street with lots of traffic noise. On the plus side, the Dungeon stayed nice and cool in the 90-degree heat!

The town of Varenna was charming – small, walkable, and situated perfectly to catch the Lake Como sunset every night. It clearly caters to tourists, yet still retained the feel of a real lakeside village – unlike nearby Bellagio, which – while still beautiful – felt more like one big shopping mall. Here are some shots of Varenna:

Travel around Lake Como is done by ferry. We hopped over to the town of Bellagio, which seems to be the main tourist shopping mecca in the area. We bought a few small souvenirs, had a lakeside lunch, then took the ferry over visit a couple other small towns. Bellagio snapshots:
 

Milan’s Monumental Cemetery

One of the highlights of our brief stay in Milan was a visit to the Cimitero Monumentale, or Monumental Cemetery. This place is a vast collection of the most elaborate, gaudy, beautiful. disturbing, and moving gravesite artwork you could imagine. Opened in 1866 and used to the present day, this cemetery is the final resting place for Milan’s wealthiest families and leading citizens. Most of the sculpture dates from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, so it covers Romantic, Expressionist, even Art Deco styles. We spent a couple hours there, but I could have spent the entire day photographing this amazing place.

Here’s some snapshots from this visit: