Transportation in Europe

It's not just about airplanes and trains when taking a big trip to Europe. We traveled by many different forms of transportation.

 

 There was the bus in Venice (as well as the bus in Rome).

The gondola in Venice was one of my favorite memories. Not exactly romantic with the kids along, but it was one of those things you just have to do while you are there.

The trolley in Poland (various cities) was a big hit with the kids.

 Sweet Son loved that the doors opened automatically while Sweet Daughter loved talking to everyone (even if they didn't speak English).

I loved that everyone let me sit down with the kids when it was crowded. It certainly helped when the kids were over tired.

This is another of my favorite memories from the trip. We rented a car in Poland because we were going to so many cities, many without public transportation. In Krakow we went to visit the castle and dragon's lair. There were signs around the area that were white squares with a big blue P on them and an arrow pointing to these spaces. Turns out that means private parking, not open to the public. When we got back to the car we discovered the boot. That's also when wonderful husband realized he had forgotten his wallet (with his drivers license) at the home we were staying in. We were able to track down a police officer who said he would send over the parking officers in a few minutes.

While we waited in the car wonderful husband tried explaining the situation to the officer. That's when we discovered a couple of other issues. Wonderful husband doesn't have an international drivers license, which is required in Poland. Luckily the officer was impressed that my husband is still fluent in Polish (now with an American accent) and decided to overlook that fact. However, he couldn't overlook the lack of any license at all. So, since I had my license on me, the ticket was written in my name and had me listed as the driver. This was an issue because the car is a standard and I don't know how to drive a standard at all, much less in a crowded, foreign, tourist area. I'm happy to say the exceptionally nice officer looked away as my husband drove us away. There were also multiple fines. The first one had to be paid on the spot in order to remove the boot. The second had to be paid by cash or money order after the fact.

For future reference - get an international drivers license, don't forget your wallet, and always be polite and speak in the local language if possible.

Rome with Kids

These are photos of some of the other things we did while in Rome.

This was us wandering around before we got lost.

This was taken before the kids started dancing in the streets.

Here we are inside the Pantheon.

Outside the Pantheon. This was a great place for a stop to refill water bottles.

Here we were wandering around the park looking for the playground that I wrote about yesterday.

 

Yes, we put our kids on a pedestal. Only literally though, not metaphorically. We're backwards like that.

We found this electric bike and went for a ride around the park. The kids didn't like it when we stopped.

Here they are happy and laughing because we are moving, but it's more difficult to tell.

After letting my husband drive most of the time, this was my turn to take over. When sitting on the passenger side you have a steering wheel that doesn't do anything. That was annoying. When I started driving I was surprised at just how sensitive the actual steering was. If you ever rent an electric bike there are a couple of things you should know. You must start by peddling and peddle through all turns/uphill or the car will just stop. However, we tried peddling uphill without the motor and that was almost impossible.

The kids wanted to try driving. They couldn't reach the peddles and couldn't make it go anywhere so we let them. haha

Playtime in Rome

We had planned on it taking us 3 full days to see everything in Rome. We ended up seeing everything we wanted and had a day left over. We did some quick research and found a local playground/park. The best part? This is an indoor/outdoor playground. It was free (we tried to pay and they wouldn't let us) and not crowded on a weekday.

This room had a play kitchen and other pretend type toys. There was also a large bookshelf with many different levels of books for kids to read. Granted, with only 2 exceptions, they were in Italian, but that's to be expected.

This room had tables that were chalkboards and many different colors of chalk around to draw with.

This was the favorite room for our kids. It was large (and had amazing ceilings). It was filled with cushions and pillows. Kids took off their shoes and rearranged the room multiple ways. Here my kids were in the process of making a path from the "couch" to the "lake" that they could walk on.

We did share the space with a few children, but I didn't take any photos of them. A couple of the kids were even bilingual English/Italian. It was nice to be able to talk to other parents about living in multiple countries.

 

This was part of the outdoor playground. These houses were just the right size though deciding which child got which house quickly became an argument. Luckily, a couple of Italian children came over and said something I couldn't hear and it was settled. I love how kids who don't speak the same language can work things out so easily.

 

Wooden sheep were also popular with my kids. I just thought they were cute.

This is where most of the kids spent their time playing. The tractor with a trailer was crowded the entire time we were there.

This was my favorite part of the playground. It took the kids a minute to figure out how it works, but once they did they loved the whistling playground.

The Vatican

Even though we are not Catholic, we wanted to visit the Vatican during our trip. We read many different guide books and ask family who had visited for their tips. Then we ignored them and did our own thing. On the way to St. Peter's Square many people approached us to try to convince us to hire them as our official tour guides. They promised we could skip the long lines to buy tickets if we would just hire them.

The only long line was security and the groups had to go through that also. Once past security, the line divided into two - one line for tour groups who already had tickets and the other to buy tickets. 85% of the line was part of a tour group and the line to buy tickets was short and fast. Don't forget to check the dress code before you attend. We did see some women wearing sleeveless shirts who were not allowed to enter St. Peter's Basilica.

We also looked at the official schedule before deciding which day to visit on. The day after we were there, the Pope gave a live speech so they were setting up chairs in order to prepare. Also be sure to follow the rules for photography and while it should be obvious, respect the traditions and expectations especially once inside the Basilica.

From inside the Basilica there was a little section off to one side that had a doorway that led to some steps going down. We watched a few people go down there and decided to follow. Most people didn't even seem to notice this doorway as they were only looking up. I highly suggest looking up, by the way it's amazing from an art perspective. Just don't forget to look everywhere else as well. We followed these few people and ended up in the crypt. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was interesting to see the different tombs. At the end of the crypt we ended up outside and there was a line of people paying to go up in the dome. We didn't even know that was an option and just had to do it. They give you many warnings about the number of steps and making sure of your health and comfort with heights before going up.

So here we are inside the Basilica at the top of the dome. We are now looking down on everyone many stories below and this is a great place to see the detail in the mosaics on the walls.

From there we had the option to go back down or to go up. Not really sure exactly where up would lead us, we decided to go up. They weren't kidding about the stairs. There were a ton of stairs. Many were crazy steep and they had put in a rope to help people pull themselves up. Once again, our kids were amazing and walked all of it without complaint. It was crowded and there weren't places to stop and rest on the way up or down. So once you started you needed to continue.

This was the view from the top. Amazing. Worth every step. It's difficult to tell from the photo just how far up we are. If you look at the first photo you see a  set of columns on top of the dome. We were standing above those. This gave us a view of all of the Vatican property as well as the surrounding areas of Rome.

After the amazing views we started the climb back down. This was many floors down on the same level as the dome. This was the first chance to rest before going down the rest of the way. At this point the kids ask if we would give them some water. So we sat in the shade for a few minutes before continuing on.

After our surprising trip to the Basilica, we headed over to the Vatican museum. All of the books and our family told us about the long lines here. We were told you must get here early - hours before it opened - because of how crowded it is. When we got there, we didn't find any line. It was midday and we literally walked right in. There was no security line, no admission line, and until we got close to the Sistine Chapel there wasn't even a crowd. Yes, there were people everywhere but no one got in the way and there was plenty to see and do without feeling herded through.

Once we got close to the Sistine Chapel it was more like herding. As in many other parts of our trip to Italy, the people just loved kids. People in line with us were playing with the kids and entertaining them the entire time. I have never seen so many high school age boys happily interacting and playing with toddlers. They weren't trying to impress the girls around them, they all seemed to really enjoy kids. That helped the waiting time fly by.

Once inside the Sistine Chapel spend a few minutes just taking it all in. They are strict with their photo policy and were constantly getting on to people for not following it and we saw them make a few people delete photos. This is one place I want to take the kids when they are older and can appreciate the art as being more than just "pretty."

Daily Life in Rome

There are only so many things you can plan on and research. Some things just happen. This post is a mixture of what we planned and things that just happened.

Our hotel was close to the Roma Termini. This made it easy to take our stuff from the train to our hotel when we first arrived. It also made it easy to catch a bus to all of the tourist stops. Sure, we could have paid a lot more money and taken one of the many tourist buses. But at 1 euro per person per way (our kids were young enough to be free), this was much cheaper. The city buses also stop at all of the tourist stops and our hotel stop was simply the terminal. Even if we didn't understand a word of Italian, we could have gotten around with no problem. It's not like we would miss the Colosseum just by looking out the window after all.

Just walking down a neighborhood street we saw this. Apparently they had just finished redoing the facade of this house. Now I want giant faces around all of our windows.

A little farther down that same street, this family started out of their house. The little girl and sweet daughter took one look at each other. Then they embraced like long lost friends. As they chatted in two different languages, the adults just looked on laughing.

At one point we got lost. We couldn't figure out which way to go. We had been walking longer than we expected. It was raining. I had opened the map so many times it had disintegrated in the rain. We eventually decided to take a taxi back. Not remembering the name of the street our hotel was on, we just told the driver to take us to the train terminal. She didn't complain about walking, but the moment we sat down she was out and didn't wake up until the next morning.

The next day he wanted more nap, so he pretended to sleep in my arms. I'm always up for a good cuddle. It didn't last long before he wanted to walk on his own again.

This was a small cafe we stopped in. We just might have let the kids eat pizza every single day we were in Italy. We also brought along dried veggies which they ate for snack every day. See that large sidewalk just behind me? That's a street. Not just a small side street for motorcycles, there was a city bus stop just out of view. When a car or bus came along, everyone just stepped to the side or in a doorway so that there was room.

 

All of the glasses were real glass. No kids cups or plastic to be found. Luckily the wine glasses had handles that made them easy to handle. The kids loved using the adults glasses and after a few times, I learned to relax and just trust them not to drop.

Historic buildings all around, fountains in the plaza, and people everywhere. When my kids hear music, they decide to dance in the street (literally). If I had just an ounce of their energy I think we would all be better off.

Da Vinci Museum, Rome

One of the things we didn't plan on doing, but decided to make time for was a visit to the Da Vinci Museum in Rome. It was centrally located, we had a coupon, and I'm kind of a nerd. Luckily it was a hands on museum and it was empty other than us, so we got to do everything for as long as we wanted.

Sweet son was thrilled to find this "crane", but this was one of the few things he wasn't allowed to play with.

Pulleys, gears, wood and ropes - this was heaven for kids who want to learn how things work.

The war machine - you couldn't go inside, but it was fun to look at.

Do you see the look on his face? We didn't need to explain how it worked. 

He could see it and control it and what more could a kid want?

She exclaimed, "It fits together like alligator teeth!"

 There were many more exhibits I'm not including photos of. This is not a huge museum, but it was fun. The kids loved seeing the swimming fins (they actually had a full sized mannequin in water).  Just about the time you forget you are in Rome, they have a cut out in the floor so you can see the ruins this building was built on top of. Most of the current buildings were built on history.

 

This was their absolute favorite. Simply turn the handle and it plays music! They watched exactly how it works and then ask wonderful husband to make them one for home. You don't always get what you want though.