Who goes south in August?

Amazing Positano

That was the million dollar question as we planned a last minute trip to the furthest south point we had been in Italy, the Amalfi Coast, in the middle of August. After a hot, relatively dry European summer we knew it probably wasn't a smart decision but based on all the wonderful things we had heard of the region and our growing love for Italy we just couldn't pass up one last opportunity to get a taste of amazing food, great people, and stunning views.

Our trip looked like this... fly to Naples on Tuesday morning, hit up Pompeii upon our arrival, visit the island of Capri on Wednesday, and enjoy some of the small towns of the Amalfi Coast on Thursday and Friday before returning to Zurich on Saturday. While we wanted to stay in the highly rated town of Positano for our entire visit, considering our last minute booking during the peak of summer, prices were outrageous and availability was limited. So instead we opted to save some money and stay in Naples the first two nights seeing that it was about the same distance to get to Pompeii and Capri from either location. Now, I don't know how much you know about Naples reputation, but let's just say its not the most highly rated place in Italy. While it might be the gateway to a lot of fantastic places to visit, the city itself (at least for most people) could not be more disappointing. Dirty and sketchy might just be two of my words of choice, some might even say the entire city is still run by the mafia...





Keeping all that in mind we chose to spend as little time as possible in the city of Naples. Upon our arrival we took a cab to our hotel and while the hotel was (thankfully) quite nice (and air conditioned considering it was close to 100 degrees outside), the smell outside of the hotel was not. Our hotel was centrally located to both the train station and the harbor so it was easy once we dropped our stuff to hop on the 45 minute train ride south to Pompeii.



Pompeii ruins in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius

To put it simply the ruins of Pompeii were incredible. For being 2000 years old I think it is fair to say they are in "immaculate" condition. It was clear that the city was impressively constructed for its time and for it to have been preserved so well truly makes it a world treasure and opportunity for us to step back in time. While seeing the architecture was interesting, I found the petrified bodies exhibit to be haunting. Somehow they found a way to inject plaster between the layer of ash and the bodies that remained when the town was discovered, thus leaving an exact replica of the position people died in when Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered everyone and everything in ash.

Petrified bodies at Pompeii

The only shade to be found at Pompeii... my favorite Italian trees and my favorite little girl!

More views around Pompeii

With that memory forever in our mind we called it a night but made an obligatory stop for Italian pizza on our way back to the hotel. Unfortunately the Italian trains lived up to their reputation as not only was the first train that came by simply too packed to even get on, but it was sufficiently behind schedule. When the second train arrived (also late) we had no choice but to get on despite it being nearly as full. And to our delight on the way back a fight broke out as well. Let's just say the entire way back I was fondly remembering that new, clean, air conditioned, high-speed train we took from Rome to Venice last fall with envy and thinking just how rare that experience was in comparison to every other one of our Italian train experiences!
 

Lucky for us Wednesday meant we moved onto a new form of transit, a ferry to get to the island of Capri. After experiencing less than stellar public transit to get us to the harbor we were delighted by a nice smooth 45 minute ferry ride to this beautiful island just off the Amalfi coast. It was easy to see why it is a favorite vacation spot for the rich and famous as the blue waters and stunning views seemed difficult to tire of. Although we quickly noticed a trend with Capri, Naples and the rest of the Amalfi... there was either dirt cheap, somewhat unreliable, hot, crowded public transportation or substantially more expensive forms of private transportation. We decided to splurge a bit and opted for an air conditioned private bus escort to help us get to various parts of the island throughout the day. And let's just say when we saw the people smashed up against the windows of the tiny public buses going around hair pin turns we were more than happy with our decision.



These photos just don't do the blue water off Capri's coast justice...
simply stunning!

We were able to make it to visit the small town of Anacapri; ride the single person chair lift to the highest point on the island, Monte Solaro (about 1500 feet); take in stunning views of Faraglioni from various spots; enjoy yet another obligatory Italian meal of fresh seafood pasta; visit the largest town on the island, Capri, which was filled with expensive shops, exclusive hotels, and nice restaurants; see gigantic yachts, and of course, eat gelato. While we were hoping to be able to take a boat to tour the Blue Grotto (a sea cave that is flooded with a brilliant blue light because of the way the light enters and reflects from the water in the cave), when we saw how small the boats were and the rumor of how long you could be stuck waiting on these tiny boats we figured it was far from an ideal for a 13 month old on a hot summer day.

One of my favorite terrible family photos from atop Monte Solaro -
Emma picking her nose, me with a disapproving look, and Steve with a strange smirk on his face.

Riding the one man chair lift up over 1000 feet with Emma in my lap - don't show this to Emma's grandparents, it definitely would not be legal in the U.S!

Love love the Italian flowers!

Wish this was my terrace...

Faraglioni... literally means "stacks"

Love this photo of Emma passed out on Steve

This one's pretty cute too, so content after a gelato stop.

Needless to say we were all pretty exhausted from our day so we were content to hop the ferry back to Naples, eat more pizza, and for me to savor one of my hard to find favorites, Fanta Lemon before crashing for the night.

Come Thursday we were all anxious to move onto Positano and do some relaxing on the beach! Per usual, it seemed incredibly difficult to get there via public transportation and we had to take the ferry and connect through Capri to eventually get us to Positano, so in total it took us almost three hours to get there. In transit we sampled some famous Italian Limoncello (lemon liqueur) and decided it definitely was not the drink for us. We were so excited when we finally made our way into the beautiful Positano harbor, even though it was clear we had a lot of stairs ahead of us for the next few days. Somehow the Italians and Greeks have an art for building amazing towns into the side of cliffs and the Amalfi is no exception. Yet, once we had sweated through our clothes by hauling a child and all of our stuff up and down hundreds and hundreds of stairs, we found we had woven ourselves to a nice apartment with a phenomenal terrace and views.

Positano Harbor from the ferry... stunning.

That is someone's house! What a view of the coastline!

While neither Steve nor I was really sure there was a good reason to leave our balcony, we remembered our love of Italian food and our need to cool off. So after settling in and indulging in some seafood risotto we found the less touristy beach as the main beach was covered in umbrellas from edge to edge. It was so much fun to finally get Emma out in the Mediterranean and while I was nervous she would be fearful of the waves, after just a little coaxing she was in it and absolutely loved it! And I think the Italians agreed that she was one of the cutest little "bellas" around as she walked up and down the path to the beach in her swimsuit and hat and made her way through the rocky beach to get into the water!

So fired up after the wave "caught" her!

Daddy daughter moment... priceless.

Trying to convince me she could do all the stairs herself!

That night we took full advantage of our gorgeous view from our apartment of the town and harbor to watch a parade and other celebrations going on as it was an Italian holiday. Luckily we had been forewarned that they would set off fireworks from a boat in the harbor at midnight as a part of the celebrations. While we tried to stay up to watch them we fell asleep early and awoke to what we thought was fireworks being set off from our balcony they were so loud (if I'm remembering correctly I think Steve almost fell out of bed). Yet, somehow Emma managed to sleep right through it. Kids, I tell you...



View over Positano's beach from our apartment balcony

While we had thought about visiting one or two of the neighboring towns such as Sorrento on Friday, we decided against it as the beach, gelato, and some relaxing shopping and meandering Positano sounded much more appealing (that and we knew we had the mother of all travel days ahead of us on Saturday). I got a morning run in (or perhaps I should call it a stair workout) and we just genuinely soaked in the Italian life by the beach and eating amazing food. Follow that by another great evening on our terrace and I don't think I could have asked for a much better last trip (at least in the near future) to Italy.

Unfortunately Saturday was the furthest thing from relaxing as we've probably never had such an arduous travel day before. It started at 7 am and consisted of walking up a couple hundred of stairs to the bus stop and then we took a bus to a bus to a train to a bus to an airport shuttle bus to an airplane to a bus to a train to a tram to a short walk home. I'm serious, I'm not exaggerating at all. It took us about 10 hours to get back to Zurich. And on top of that Emma was starting to get a tooth and a cold and slept horribly on Friday night, but she brought her A game on Saturday and was a rock star all day.

To say the least we saw some of the best and worst of Italy in one trip. And sadly it was our last intercontinental trip before our move back. Good thing it was a good one. We are definitely going to miss living just a few hours from the Italian border. Sorry Kansas, you just don't compare.



Atop Monte Solaro on Capri

The Most Magical Place...

We just couldn't resist, we just had to go to Zermatt one last time before we left Switzerland. So somehow we managed to find a free weekend in August and made our fifth trip to this magical town in the far south of Switzerland. We were also excited that we were able to go with good friends Joe, Liz and their son Liam. Evidently we have them to thank for the phenomenal weather...

We made the three hour train ride down on Friday evening (we definitely miss the amazing Swiss train system already) and found our way to the apartment we rented with our friends for the weekend. Emma and Liam were excited to see one another and find out they were having a sleep over (kind of)! And the adults were excited for dinner, drinks, and good conversation "late" into the night (according to tired parents standards).

There was a summer festival going on during the weekend in Zermatt

Saturday the agenda was to get outside, enjoy the amazing weather and views of the Matterhorn from the hiking trails above Zermatt, and find our way around five different lakes that all boast views of this iconic mountain. We took a cable car up from Zermatt to somewhere around 8,000 or 9,000 feet to the exact spot we had skied back in April. It was fun to see the same but very different view from the area. We spent the better part of the day taking in the great weather and enjoying the company while we took turns toting the kiddos on our backs. We did cut the hike a little short, but we couldn't resist having a little more time to wander around the cute streets of Zermatt. We eventually made it back to enjoy another great dinner and conversation with our friends while watching Emma and Liam wreak havoc on the apartment.

Just out for a Saturday afternoon hike...

I guess the views were pretty good

This view was probably the greatest of all! Seriously the two cutest hikers ever...

While I got some good altitude training in on Saturday morning, my body wasn't ready to run at 6,000 feet two days in a row. So we parted ways with our friends in the morning after enjoying a great breakfast courtesy of Liz, and we each headed out to do our own thing before heading back to Zurich later in the day. While Steve and I had hoped to explore the Glacier Matterhorn Paradise, which is the closest viewing platform of the Matterhorn and one of the highest platforms around (at nearly 13,000 feet) we found out we could not go with Emma. Although we were a little disappointed it just gives us another reason to have to go back to Zermatt someday. And as the options are endless in Zermatt we happily found ourselves instead heading up the Gornergrat train to another beautiful lake and lunch spot with what else, but views of the Matterhorn?! We knew we had found the hot spot two days in a row as both days we ran into the same modeling shoot at different locations...

Amazing reflection!

King of the hill!

Taking in the views

One look at the photos and I think it's pretty easy to see why we love Zermatt so much and it was so hard to say goodbye one last time when we left town on Sunday afternoon. The place is simply amazing and I have no doubt it will go down as one of my favorite places visited for all my life. I just hope Emma will take me back one day!

 



Too bad this girl sleeps through all the best photo spots!

Norway: The Land of Trolls and Midnight Sun

Norway is out of this world in so many different ways!

A lot of people ask me, could I live in Switzerland permanently? My answer is a quick and resounding yes! Do I think I could live in a lot of other places in Europe permanently? Probably not. Yet, without a doubt I could live in Scandinavia. During our time in Europe we visited four of the five Scandinavian countries and I absolutely fell in love with them. It was pretty easy to do considering many of the similarities they share with Switzerland including a very high standard of living (which is also a reason why they all make many top 10 in the world lists).

At the end of July, we visited our third Scandinavian country of Norway. We flew out bright and early on a Friday morning and we had the treat of sitting next to the most polite, smartest six year old I have probably ever met as she was fluently carrying on conversations in English, Swiss German, and Norwegian. Although I might have felt a little stupid next to her, she was too sweet as she saved us the complimentary chocolates that Swiss Air hands out during the flight as we all dozed off for a few minutes. We quickly found out that she was quite typical of the majority of Norwegians who all are extremely nice and smart!

Anyways, after a connection in Copenhagen, it was still only mid-morning by the time we landed in Oslo. We picked up our rental car and some coffee before making the drive into the city center to explore downtown Oslo for the afternoon. It was disappointing but not surprising as we quickly verified that Norway tops Switzerland with how expensive it is. Starbucks cost us 2.5 times what it would in the U.S. and a can of soda in a convenience store cost nearly $5!!

Emma running away from a troll!

With the few hours we had in Oslo we meandered past a palace, castle, old town, and had a "reasonable" lunch on the harbor. While it seemed to be a nice city, there was nothing super intriguing to us, so we were happy to hit the road towards central Norway. We reserved a hotel for the night just two hours outside of Oslo that was conveniently located along our driving route, simply meant to be a place to break up the drive. In the interest of full disclosure we knew ahead of time it wasn't going to be much more than a simple motel room, but we definitely had no idea it was going to be located ABOVE a gas station! I kid you not, we had a balcony on the 2nd floor and straight below it was gas pumps... talk about scenic! Yet, all of us were exhausted so we found a quick dinner and more or less headed straight to bed.


Just an "average" road side stop on our drive

Saturday morning came and I got my first taste of what the midnight sun feels like when I woke up at 3 am and the sun was rising (we weren't far enough north to have sunlight 24 hours a day, but it was close as it didn't set until close to 11 pm). I was excited to enjoy my first of many nice Norwegian runs (it included lots of hills, which was good since I was training for a mountain marathon at the time). After a quick breakfast we got back on the road for another 2.5 hours to Flam, Norway which was our destination for the next two nights. Although Friday's drive had been nice and reminded me a lot of northern Minnesota filled with pine trees, lakes, and rolling hills, Saturday's drive very quickly became more beautiful and dramatic as we headed into central Norway. It was a much more rugged terrain with waterfalls, and surprisingly we maybe saw more sheep and goats than we did in Ireland. We truly felt like we were either in the Lord of the Rings or Jurassic Park movie set at times. And as we hit the small fingers of the Sognefjord the scenery was very dramatic with towering cliffs and deep valleys. As a result our drive was quickly consumed with tunnels (there were even sheep and goats that found their way into the tunnels!) cutting through the landscape. Lucky for us we had the privilege of driving through the world's longest tunnel several times over the next few days (which says a lot since many of the tunnels in Switzerland are quite long as well that cut through the mountains). However, the Laerdal tunnel tops them all at 24 km (15 miles) long. We found it best not to overthink the logistics behind the construction of such a long tunnel as we drove through it.

Out of a tunnel and bam! What a view of the Sognefjord!

As we arrived in Flam near lunch time we did our first of many change of plans due to weather and forecasts for the days ahead so we could try to fit in all of our outdoor activities in the best conditions. We then enjoyed a traditional Norwegian lunch of meat, potatoes, and salad and from there took a scenic two hour out and back train ride through the Myrdal valley which was full of waterfalls and said to be one of the most scenic train rides in all of Europe (while very scenic, there were still definitely several Swiss train routes that could rival it in our opinion).

Kjosfossen Waterfall along the scenic train ride

A little corny, but it sets the mood...

Quite the waterfalls and roads!

So much fun on the old scenic train!

Content with our first taste of the Norwegian fjords we made our way to the apartment we rented for the next two nights just outside of Flam in a small town called Laerdal. We stocked up on groceries to cook a few meals at the apartment since Norwegian food wasn't anything to write home about and to save a little money. While it was disappointing to find out the sale of beer and wine is very limited to certain times of the day and limited stores are able to sell it, we figured it was probably good as it saved us more money!
 

Such a fun boat ride!



With a taste of the Sognefjord right outside of our apartment balcony we were excited to take a scenic two hour boat ride on Sunday. We took the first one out as the forecast didn't look very good for later in the day. While it was still overcast, we avoided the rain and got to enjoy amazing views on the fjord instead (at least Steve and I enjoyed the views, Emma enjoyed playing with the three dogs on board instead).

Back in Flam I had a non-Norwegian lunch of pizza while Steve picked the very Norwegian choice of a reindeer burger before we headed to the apartment to enjoy a "lazy" afternoon and the views from where we were staying, as we knew we had a busy few days planned ahead. While Steve and Emma's quiet afternoon included a nap and finding the playground by the beach, mine was a 15 mile run along the water. While it was far from lazy I wouldn't have it any other way as it was without a doubt one of the most spectacular places I have ever run. There were countless small waterfalls running into the fjord and I was countless reindeer crossing signs along my route.

To give you a better idea if you aren't familiar with what a fjord is (I know I wasn't prior to moving to Europe), it is a narrow inlet of water that flows into the land from the ocean and surrounded by steep sides or cliffs. Much of Norway is filled with these fjords as the ocean literally seems to finger its way into the country and in technical terms the fjords add thousands of coastline to the country. And if you haven't figured it out yet, the fjords are stunning.

A view from Bessggen Ridge over Lake Gjende

Monday morning was again an early start day as we left Laerdal and the Sognefjord and drove about two hours away to the Jotunheimen National Park, which means "Home of the Giants." While we originally intended to make Monday a driving day only and just enjoy the scenery, we pushed up our scheduled Tuesday hike to a day earlier as the forecast looked menacing for Tuesday. Our hike for the day was along the Besseggen Ridge, which is situated alongside one of the country's most beautiful lakes, Lake Gjende. It is also known as Norway's most famous day hike and was full of glaciers, mountains, lakes, waterfalls and two of the highest peaks north of the Alps at about 8,000 feet.

To start the hike we took a short boat ride halfway down the lake to the start of our hike from the Memurubu hut, which would eventually take us back to where we parked our car near the Gjendesheim hut. Although there was substantial elevation change throughout the hike, the majority of the increase came at the beginning as we ascended to the top of the ridge that ran alongside the emerald green lake Gjende that's nearly 500 feet deep. Meanwhile the ridge is closer to 4,000 feet high at points. These thousands of feet up and down led us past amazing views, particularly of the glacier formed lakes. As it was nearly 8 miles in length we knew it would not be a quick hike, especially as we like to take frequent breaks and let a certain little hiker to get out and stretch her legs as well.

Me and my hiking buddy

A 360 degree view of the area we hiked along the ridge.

At times during our hike we felt like we were on the ends of the earth, even the moon as we had never scene landscape and terrain anything like it. It was without a doubt one of the most difficult hikes we had done, which was a bit to our surprise as we saw people of all ages along the way. It certainly tested our bounds. When we heard that 30,000 people a year did this hike it really surprised us, but it is a testament to the tough, outdoors people that Norwegians are, perhaps more adventurous than the Swiss. While the Swiss will get out and explore anywhere, they still like their conveniences and have found ways to string cable cars and mountain huts and restaurants most anywhere throughout the country. Not so much the case in Norway as there was no such sign of life on this well traveled path. While we were tested along the hike, I think we will both forever remember it to be perhaps the best hike we went on in our time in Europe. The views were once in a lifetime and we feel blessed to have made the hike and that Emma was a great hiking buddy that day. If you want to get a full taste of God's amazing creation, watch this video I found of the hike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObBXbIkOseI

We couldn't stop ourselves from taking a lot of photos either...



After a long, strenuous day we were extremely happy to find our way to our hotel for the evening. We found some very non-Norwegian food, Thai food, and quickly crawled into our warm beds for a good nights sleep.

While we had originally planned to hike on Tuesday and stay in this hotel for two nights, we again had changed plans, altered hotel schedules and set out on the road on Tuesday to make it to our next destination a day early in another attempt to beat bad weather for our planned outdoor activities. We spent both Tuesday and Wednesday driving about four hours each day in order to make our way to the southwest corner of the country and the city of Stavenger for the end of the week. Lucky for us we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful and enjoyable four hour drive each day (let's just say its a little more scenic than the drive from St. Louis to Kansas City). We made picnic lunches each day and just stopped wherever we felt, taking in magnificent views along several other large fjords and seeing waterfalls that were out of this world. The Hardangerfjord was especially impressive.

What a beautiful drive, and narrow roads of course...

Powerful waterfalls along our drive

Every now and then we would come across these very, very old wooden "Stave" churches

Another beautiful old church

Tuesday night we stopped in the small town of Tyssedal and stayed in a hotel literally perched over the fjord. While it was nice, it was still exorbitantly priced and served more bland Norwegian food for dinner. At least the very friendly staff made up for it a little!

By Wednesday afternoon we finally arrived in our last stop of the trip, Stavenger. We were excited that we had found such a great place to stay as well. A beautiful one bedroom private apartment made us all feel at home for our last four nights and was surprisingly the least expensive of all the places we stayed that week!

Emma was pretty pumped about her toys at the Stavenger apartment! What else would you expect in Norway, a rocking reindeer!

We made our way just outside of Stavenger on Thursday to take on the Preikestolen hike (otherwise known as Pulpit Rock), which was located on the Lysefjord. It was a rocky hike up two hours to an amazingly strange large flat rock that juts out over the fjord. Not only had I never seen anything quite like it, but I had never experienced anything similar in terms of such a crazy busy hiking path. It was two hours of constant lines formed along the path up. I seriously questioned whether I was in the Norwegian countryside or a famous Paris museum. It once again reconfirmed my conclusions that the Norwegians are avid outdoorsmen.

On the way up

Beautiful scenery on the way to the top

First view over the Lysefjord

And that's why they call it Pulpit Rock!

View from the edge of Pulpit Rock

Steve had to take the really cool photo...

View from above Pulpit Rock

On Friday we enjoyed another scenic boat ride, this time along the Lysefjord for views from below. Although similar to the other fjords we saw further north into the country, there was still a different feel and look to this fjord, likely as the climate still was quite a bit different from what they experience in other parts of the country. Also, we were much closer to the start of the fjord/the ocean so we got a feel for what the mouth of the fjord feels like and all the tiny islands surrounding it.

After the boat ride we took some time to meander around the old town in Stavenger. While we still had an unplanned day ahead on Saturday before we had to leave on Sunday morning, we knew that severe storms were supposed to come in so we tried to take advantage of the remaining nice weather while it lasted. We were glad we did as most of Saturday kept us inside, although we did eventually find ourselves doing a little shopping downtown and seeing a few of the key sites in the area. And of course like normal we enjoyed some non-Norwegian food on our last day with a stop at a Irish pub followed by dinner at a Mexican restaurant!

We were certainly sad to see Sunday arrive and have to head back to Zurich. It was a wonderful nine day trip full of unbelievable scenery and experiences. Norway definitely tops the lists of places we would love to go back to as it is a big country with so much more still to see!






Hope we all can re-create this photo again one day!