Licata

Licata was the last city Thane served it, and therefore fitting that it would be our last stop in Italy as well. The Giovanni Catania family was nice enough to let us stay in their home for a few days. Thane knew Giovanni years ago before the addition of the wife and their two and a half children (wife is pregnant).

Thane, Annie, Danielle, (forgot name), and Giovanni

Little Gabrielle enjoying the beach, and what a beautiful one it was.

This shot was taken in Palermo. Thane couldn't resist the red, white and blue cars the day before returning home.

Catania and Agrigento

Catania was the largest city Thane served in and the center of his mission. He spent a lot of time in the Bellini Gardens talking to people.

You can see Thane above the day written in scrubbery (I wonder if the gardener ever says to his helpers "Bring me a shrubbery!" Sorry, Monty Python joke there). Yes, they changed it every day.

Thane and Annie in front of one of the temples at Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, the largest display of Greco-Roman temples outside of Greece.


Thane, in front of the most intact temple. Nearly all temples were destroyed at some point because they were Pagan. This one survived because it was turned into a Catholic church and used for some time.
This was more than was left of most of the temples.

Crotone

Crotone was the first city Thane served in as a missionary. It was so fun for him to return, walk the same streets and be reunited with many of his old friends.


Thane and Annie with Angela (younger) and Erminia Trusciglio.

A stunning Sicilian sunset.
With the Sarcones (Franco's playing with the camera) in front of La Castella.

Now it's Annie's turn to play photographer. Sorella, wipe that smirk off!

From left to right, Ferrucio, Nerina, Thane, Annie Rosa, Nerina's husband and Carlos--great friend's of the missionaries. Nerina wasn't married when Thane knew her, which is one example of how fun it was to catch up on people's lives.

Pompeii

A room with many of the artifacts found in Pompeii.

A mosaic on the floor of someone's house depicting some famous battle. Apparently when intact, the mosaic had a million pieces.

Annie sitting in the little theater in Pompeii.

The team of archaeologists who discovered or at least were the first to excavate Pompeii discovered these strange holes filled with bones underneath the ash. Their leader had the good sense to make plaster casts of the indentations. What resulted were a number of these plaster skeletons of people in the position they were in when Vesuvius erupted. In fact, you can even see the look on this poor man's face.

Cinque Terra

Monterrolla--one of the five towns of Cinque Terre.

Thane and Annie with Monterossa in the background.

The original Lover's Lane, one of the many paths we hiked during our stay in Cinque Terre.

A seagull swoops down to nibble at the tough part of Thane's sandwich as we sat on the rocks and ate our lunch.

Vernazza.

Sunset over Riomaggiorre, our home base for the three days at Cinque Terre National Park.

Supper time at Rio Maggiorre. Thane didn't like the mussels in the picture, but sure loved the gnocchi he had as a primo. Annie had some sort of fish.

Venice

Annie from one of Venice's many bridges, or I guess in their case, sidewalks.

Gondoliers doing their thing.

St. Mark's Square and St. Mark's Cathedral. A beautiful old church and a meeting place for thousands of pigeons. Vendors would sell bird feed for the foolhearty tourist who wishes to feed the pigeons. Imagine Alfred Hitchcock's the birds--a million, hungry, overly brave pigeons in your face, hair, on your clothes, pecking for food. Needless to say, we didn't buy the feed. Watching the unsuspecting tourists get accosted was enjoyment enough. Take that Mary Poppins!


The symbol of Venice anciently was the lion or griffin. Next to is is some streetlights with the famous Venetian pink glass (and modern incandescent lights inside). Italy was like that, always combining the ancient and the modern.

A quaint Venice entryway.

Verona

One of Verona's many bridges, seen from an old church overlooking the city.

Thane and Annie from the vantage point of an old church.
Thane and his mission president, Giovanni Ascione.
The supposed balcony of Juliet, or in Italian, Giulietta.

Florence

Florence's Duomo--perhaps one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. The exterior is done with three colors of marble--pink, green and white. The coloring and details are beautiful.

Centuries ago, Florence held a contest to decorate the East doors of its baptistry. You can see why Ghiberti and his bronze doors took the prize. Each square depicts a scene or story from the Old Testament. And there are figures carved in relief that separate the panels. We literally spent an hour just looking at everything. Little known fact: Thane actually got a perfect grade on a humanities paper he did on these doors.

After climbing approximately 300 steep and winding stairs through the bowels of the Duomo, you're treated with a 360 degree panoramic of Florence. One word: Wow.

Thane and Annie atop the Duomo. I don't know about you, but Thane's face looks a little flush.

Like you need any introduction here. "You scream, I scream. We all scream for gelato!" Hmm, that doesn't really work. Neither did Annie's claim that she was getting her "three a day" of fruit by eating multiple serving of gelato. Nice try, Annie.

Thane and Annie at a park overlooking the city.


In case you forgot what we look like, here's us at a bridge.


Funny story. We ran into these two Spaniards in line for the Uffizzi gallery. We struck up a conversation in Italian, and broken English and Spanish (Spanglianish?) Then, the next day we saw them in line for another museum. Then the next day we saw them at the train station. All unplanned of course. They were fun and both nurses like Annie. Thane felt very safe with them.

Rome

Trevi Fountain--beautiful, if you can see it through the throngs of tourists.


Thane and Annie on a bridge with St. Peter's basilica in the background.

A fountain at Piazza Nuova. It looks like the trident-wielding statue is spearing Annie's head. (Perhaps, he's never seen a redhead before.)

It's Tourist Day at the Spanish Steps. Oh wait. Every day is Tourist Day at the Spanish Steps. Rome would be even better if the Roman-to-tourist ratio were higher. Not that we should complain since we're part of the problem.

La pieta', la carita', e l'amore. Sorry, little Italian missionary humor here (props to the two people who will actually get this joke.) No actually, just La Pieta (Piety), a statue Michelangelo did as a young man. Exquisite and moving, but behind glass ever since a hammer-carrying madman thought he could improve it by eliminating Mary's nose.



Peter holding the "keys of the kingdom." Thane got obsessed with keys and the notion of ecclesiastical authority so he took pictures of everything with keys--doors, cars, pianos. Just kidding, only symbolic keys of course. The symbol of the Vatican is a set of keys though.

Thane and Annie inside the Roman Colosseum. Nothing like a romantic date watching two gladiators fight for their lives. "Honey, could you pass the popcorn."

Thane with an old missionary companion, Marco Lui, who is now an Italian actor. We actually saw commercials for his TV show. Marco is a very funny guy.

Last night in Rome. Funny, no one wanted to sit next to the Americans. Sigh. At least the food was good.

Our Trip to Italy

At the end of April, we packed our bags for three glorious weeks in Italy. Thane speaks fluent Italian (due to the two years he spent in Italy a decade ago as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints http://www.lds.org/) but he was a bit rusty. So months ago we started to read together in Italian and practice when we could. Annie did well and picked it up right away, perhaps because he knows some Spanish.

Overview

We flew into Rome April 29 and stayed X days. We saw the typical things: the Vatican, the Colliseum, the Roman forum, the X fountains, the Spanish steps, etc. Thane's favorite part was intentionally trying to get lost. You could turn around and run into the most amazing cathedral or fountain without ever intending to find them.

Next, we went to Florence. The highlights of Florence were the Duomo, one of the most beautiful buildings we've ever seen. The exterior is done in pink, green, and white marble. And the baptistery has the Ghiberti's fabled bronze doors. We also saw the Uffizzi galleries, one of the best collections of art in the world, the Bridge of Sighs, the Boboli gardens and Ponte Vecchio.

Verona was next on the list and a much more "chill" city. Verona has a lot of natural beauty but we didn't feel there was as much to do as Florence or Rome, but a good needed vacation from our vacation was much appreciated! We did see the Veronese arena, like Rome's Collosieum but only smaller, yet much more kept together that it's still in use for operas and concerts. Verona is also the setting of Romeo and Juliet and houses both Juliet's balcony and Juliet's tomb. I'm not sure how a character actually has a house or a tomb, but perhaps I just need to brush up on my Shakespeare. We also got to eat lunch with the Ascione family who Thane knew from his mission.

Cinque Terre is a collection of five villages on the (West) Italian coast. Some of the most beautiful sites we saw in Italy happened here. It was also a lot of fun to hike around and check out the original Lover's Lane.

Pompei was next up. We were both surprised by the sheer magnitude of the city. There was so much to see and so much of it had been carefully restored. In fact, there were even plaster casts of some of the victim's of Vesuvius' wrath.

Crotone was the first city Thane serve in as a missionary and the next city we visited. We spent most of our time here visiting Thane's old friends, but only got to spend an afternoon soaking up rays on the beach, and a fun evening at a nearby castle with the Sarcone family.

Catania was just a quick stop for us. We got to walk up and down the main drag, see the Bellini Gardens, the old ruins, Catania's Duomo and have the best Sicilian pastries and foods ever.

Licata was the last stop of our vacation appropriately as it was also the last stop of Thane's mission. Here, the Catania family was kind enough to offer us a place to stay for the three days we were here. Licata has some beautiful beaches and great vistas. It was also fun to wander the streets, dine on pizza and indulge in gelato and granita.

What follows are individual posts about each city taken for our trip journal. Feel free to read them or just look at the pictures.

Welcome to our Blog

Dear Friends, Families and incidentals,

Welcome to our blog! We'll be using this space to detail our comings and goings, our thoughts and opinions, and most importantly our pictures.

First a little about us:

We live in Westminster, CO, just north of Denver. We moved to our current residence about a year ago. Annie's a ICU nurse at a local hospital, and Thane works as a marketing analyst for an email service provider.

Now that that's out of the way, read on.

Let us know what you think,

Thane & Annie