I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying the new year! We've been busy bees since we last posted from Italy; I feel we've already done too much for me to discuss in one blog! Let me try and bring everyone up to speed in a quick & dirty recap of the past two weeks, and anyone reading can expect another post to pop in the next couple days. I cannot cover everything, so I encourage anyone & everyone to hop over to our flickr pics to fill in the gaps (mind the captions, which require great effort!).
During our last days in Tuscany, Mary and I took the opportunity to do a last bit of sightseeing. After visiting the hilltop town of Massa Marittima (beautiful views of Tuscany's rolling hills for miles with the Mediterranean in the distance), we stopped at the Etruscan Necropolis near Vetulonia, which have been dated to be more than 2000 years old.
We took another adventure to Castel del Piano, a lovely town nestled near the peak of Mt. Amiata. It didn't make the cut for the featured blog photos, but in no way does that mean it's not worth checking out in our flickr pics.
On Christmas Eve, after greeting an Italian family on holiday at Bodo's (who also intend to purchase Il Poderone), we took a quick getaway to nearby Montorsaio, which features spectacular views of the area where we had been staying. I think the above snapshot looks like Mount Doom- on a sunny afternoon.
The actual town of Montorsaio plays host to what is, in my experience, the world's most enthusiastic collection of nativity scenes (flickr pics).
That evening (on Christmas Eve), we were invited to a traditional Italian dinner at Il Poderone with the visitors (soon to be owners). It had everything you'd expect from such an experience- loads on antipasti, heaps of pasta, loud banter, and (after enough wine) even a musical performance- complete with accordion. On Christmas morning, the Italians very kindly dropped us off at the train station in Grosseto. We rode the train to Rome, where our plane was waiting to take us to Berlin. After finally arriving at our hotel, it was late, we were tired, and we had Burger King for our Christmas meal; after almost half a year without fast food, few meals could have tasted better.
The next day, we headed downtown to Berlin's central Potsdamer Platz to kill some time before picking up Mary's little sister and her friend at the airport. We immediately noticed that in Germany they do Christmas the right way- Christmas was everywhere; Christmas markets had popped up in all of the popular locales.
Potsdamer Platz had a small exhibit on a section of the Berlin Wall that once resided there. It was covered in chewing gum.
After picking up Emily and her friend, Sam, everyone was tired, and the new arrivals were jet-lagged. We went to the Christmas market in Alexanderplatz, where we enjoyed delicious sausages and Gluhwein (hot, spiced wine; mulled wine; what have you). Then it was off to bed.
The following day, we grabbed the train to Potsdam, which featured a most-excellent Christmas market. For all our exploits there- flickr pics.
After leaving the market, we touristed our way across the beautiful gardens of Sanssouci. In the picture you can see Sanssouci palace, the summer home of Frederick the Great- decorated in the Rococo style.
We took the next day to explore East Berlin. In the above picture, you can see the Berliner Dome, Berlin's great cathedral (though, being a Protestant church, it isn't really a cathedral because it isn't the seat of a bishop), and the TV Tower to the right of it (off in the distance).
We stumbled across a Mercedes-Benz museum. Directly across the street was the Bentley dealership. More in the flickr pics.
The Brandenburg Gate! Around the corner we found an interesting concrete park which might warrant a visit to our flickr pics.
The next day, we woke up early and made our way to the airport to pick up our rental Mercedes. I raced it down the autobahn to Prague, capital of The Czech Republic, once the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of Bohemia. There were no more euros here; we were rolling with fat stacks of hundreds of koruna.
If Prague isn't known for it's venerable and aristocratic history, then it is known for the world's best Pilsner beers. Only in Ireland does the the average citizen drink more.
This is the New Town in Prague. For a city with so much history "New" is a relative term.
Just down the street from New Town is Old Town, which can best be described as real-life Disney World.
The sisters, reunited. It was cold. We enjoyed yet another Christmas market- this was the one setup in Old Town. The central Christmas tree, aside from being the best we'd seen in Europe, was the star of the show.
We spent our second day in Prague sightseeing across the Vltava River, to Prague Castle. Rain, freezing rain, and snow all tried to thwart us, but the women just put on their headscarves and we marched on.
Don't they look like refugees?
We took a zillion pictures of Prague Castle, which can found in our flickr pics. I chose this one for the blog- the most-excellent tomb of John of Nepomuk, inside St. Vitus Cathedral. Prague Castle also contains St. George's Basilica. I want everyone on Earth to know that St. George was canonized because he slew the last dragon. Awesome.
On our way back to Berlin, we became lost on the strange, still-forming Czech highway system. Before we reached the German border, we were caught in a blizzard. It was obvious that The Czech Republic didn't approve of our Czeching-out. What should've been a three and a half hour journey lingered on for well over five hours, but, eventually, we made it back to Berlin in one piece.
Mary and I are already in Copenhagen, so I'll have to quickly catch everyone up on our last few days of travel- expect another post soon! We will elaborate on the splendor that is Berlin's KaDeWe.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Jake
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