Butler Family Travels

I’m sure you have all figured out how this blogging thing works. It’s a bit like a diet. Binge, starve, binge, starve… No consistency whatsoever. Please bear with us. If you care enough to do the math you would know that we are NOT actually in Milan anymore and haven’t been for almost 2 weeks. I guess that is how we roll!? I’ll tell you a bit about our last days in Italy anyway. Then Jeb promises to make 5 or 6 posts in a row. One every day in fact. Watch for them to start showing up and we’ll be in Prague by then. Duomo was beautiful on the outside but, to be honest, we all felt that the inside was a bit creepy. Maybe it was the deceased Popes’ corpses laying around?   The detailed work on the large church doors were magnificent. Pilgrims like to touch that sort of stuff too.   The shopping in Milan is glorious! There is a different kind of pilgrim that comes here just for that.   We walked around and gawked at it all. Who wears some of that stuff anyway? This guy caught Jeb’s eye and he was all too happy to pose for a euro.   Maybe looking at all the beautiful Italians and beautiful clothes convinced Jeb to go to a legit Italian barber.     And Levi too!   We had to have pizza on our last day – one for each of us. Then it was time to move on. Oh look, there’s a horizontal surface.  

Things can change so quickly and I love it. Sitting in the lobby of a wonderful, 820 year old Hotel Duomo in snowy Siena, we decide to skip the Alps (for now) and fly to England. The cheapest and only reasonable option out of Milan (where we drop Jolyn off in 5 days) is a flight to London, so we booked the tickets. Now we are driving north from Pisa. The plan was to go to Cinque Terre (5 small coastal towns that you hike from one to the next), but the weather isn’t cooperating for hiking so we took a quick vote. It’s unanimous. Let’s just drive. Viva La France!

Better than we expected, even though it was a total tourist trap. More people were in the most twisted positions posing and taking pictures than we have ever seen anywhere. Quite entertaining and the best part – we joined in the goofy fun. Yes, Jeb and Levi even paid to climb that old leaning tower.  

Just a few photos:

Jolyn joined us for our Italy and South France portion of the trip and it was a blast having her. Here are some pics from Siena, Italy.

Don’t: Get lost driving around at night (It wastes a lot of time!) Trip on the black cobble-stoned streets (especially in front of cute Italian boys). Cry when you see the Sistine Chapel. Get run over by a moped or a smart car (Pedestrians are 2^nd class!) Bother asking for directions. Drop your tiny gelato spoon (You might not find it.) Pass out at the Vatican (Like the little, old lady who did.) Ask to use a toilet (Makes you wonder if they want you to be here…) Punt a pigeon (Jeb and Levi!) Expect free wi-fi to be free. Stand in line at the Colluseum (Buy a Roma Pass!!) Stalk the gladiators in the grocery store (Rebekah and Jolyn!) Take pictures with Glutenous Maximus (It’s not free so it’s good we didn’t try it.) Go with your buddy to take profile pictures for dating.com (@ the Trevi Fountian). Sign the walls of the Catacombs (Don’t worry, we didn’t, but stupid people do.) Antagonize the local crow (Well, actually, you should. It’s really fun!) Expect to pop your head out of the Metro hole on the correct side of the street. Get stuck in the ancient elevator (at the apartment bldg. you’re staying at.) Get a sore neck from looking up at all the amazing ceilings.

Born in a lagoon 1,500 years ago as a refuge from barbarians, Venice is Europe’s best preserved Middle-Ages city. It is laced together by 400 bridges and 2,000 alleys. ( There are NO cars.) In the Middle-Ages, the Venetians became Europe’s clever middlemen for East-West trade and created a trading and shipping empire. The seat of the Venetian government and home of its ruling doge, or duke, was the most powerful and wealthy half-acre in Europe for 400 years. The city, during that time, was the world’s richest! However, with the discovery of America and new trading routes, Venetian power ebbed. As it fell, her appetite for decadence grew and through the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Venice partied on the wealth it had accumulated through earlier times as a trading empire. All of it is evident as we visited the Doge’s Palace, saw St. Marco’s Square, wandered the canals, and floated down the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is Venice’s “Main Street”. The most lavish palaces in Venice form a sort of chorus line along the entire canal, each with its own entrance from the water. – Paraphrased from Rick Steves’ Venice is truly a beautiful city! It was really hard to pick which pictures to show you since I think we filled an entire card with them. I’ll only bother you with two pages… Photography in the Doge’s Palace were forbidden, but I must add that we did get to see the largest oil painting in the world in there!