From the Riveria to the heart of the Roman church

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Wow,
Kat and I were talking and couldnt believe that it had been 2 weeks since we last posted our blog...so here we are. We have seen so much since our last blog...where do we begin...i guess where we left off!
We were in Barcelona last and loved it! After barcelona we took a train to Arles france in provence. we stayed in a little hotel right on the rhone river. just outside our hotel window we could see where van gogh would have placed his easel to paint his famous "starry night over the rhone" which brings me to my next point, all over arles (pronounced arl) there are concrete or metal easels which show with a picture where van gogh would have placed his easel. neat. We saw things like his famous yellow cafe....and the garden that he painted after he cut off his ear...and a whole bunch of others we havnt seen but it was cool to stand and look at the easel and the picture and see what he did when he painted them! Also in arles was remains of a roman ampitheatre and colliseum which was super neat. The city was a huge roman empire back in the day and had remains of a circus (where they do chariot races), and while we were looking for something else a concierge came over to see what we were looking for. when we told him we were looking for the ruins that are part of a plaza he pointed in the direction to go, but before we left he motioned for us to look under the hotel through a window. under the hotel about 20 feet below was remains of roman paving (for streets)! all of the ruins lay beneath what is now arles as over the past 2000 years thats how much "build up" there has been over top. we loved arles but after that we went to Nice (pronounced neice) which is in the french riveria on the mediterranian. outstanding. blue-green water thats warm, and very salty compared to the pacific, sun, topless grandmas with belly buttons between the money makers, and lots of neat stuff to see. we stayed at a hole of a hotel, but the toilet flushed and there was a fridge so i could chill beers, and it was central, but other than that i thought it sucked. oh well. Nice is cool, however theres about a days worth of stuff to do and see, so we managed 2 day trips from nice to explore the wonderful villefranche sur mer, and of course monaco.
villefranche was so cute. picture perfect! everything from small fishing boats, to sailing boats to private yachts (50 square feet big), to cruise ships were all lazily bobbing in the cove. this is the french riveria. a walk from end to end of the town was about 10 minutes, with a pee break in the middle. after a quick stroll and lunch we took a couple of hours to sit on the pebble beaches of the riveria. i can see why so many celebrities have places out here...do they? who knows? but it was beautiful. the next day we went to monaco.
Our guide book instructed us to get off a stop early from monaco and walk along a coastal path for 40 minutes and arrive in monaco that way. wow was it ever stunning. it was a path way running along the med with waves crashing up against it spraying a mist of water all over the place. above the path are mansions. and i mean mansions. every so often they would have a sign of who used to live here blah blah blah, but one i can remember, and translate as everything is in french and my lovely translator was busy taking pictures like she was working for national geographic was no where to be found, was a home belonging to someone that would host winston churchhill often. anyways, this was one of the highlites of our day. such a neat walk along the coast of the med. I could tell we were getting close to monaco because of the amount of helicopter traffic. as im sure you know monaco has the highest per capita income and there is no such thing as income tax here. its a self governing country run by a prince. so as we got closer to monaco i could smell it. yep, that was definately it...no doubt i could pick that smell out of anywhere...you guessed it. I could smell money. and lots of it. living in vancouver we are accustomed to seeing a massive yacht probably worth upwards of 50 mil us. and thats neat, but when you are in monaco its one after the next after the next. i couldnt believe the size of some of these yachts, and then to see 15 in a row was overwhelming. the decks decorated with huge overstuffed black and silver cushions with fresh orchids. it looked like each person had a personal cruise ship. of course none of the owners were on their ships, just their crews who looked at us like a couple of schmucks taking pictures and pointing and oohing and aweing. oh well. im on vacation! because monaco is home to the grand prix every may or march of something, there must be alot of mini races that happen there, as the day we were there there was a supped up go-kart race there. they were cars run by some kids probably like 18 years old (damn youth) and were quick and loud. that was happening in the harbour so we only spent a little time down there looking at boats and had a quick bite. people everwhere and the noise was stupid loud especially because it was near the water. after the harbour we went up to the world famous casino. the one that put monaco on the map! it was everything i expected. youll have to see the pictures becasue you wont believe me otherwise but the cars surrounding the casino were gnarly. literally it was bentley, bentley, mercedes, bmw, bentley, lotus, bentley, ferarri, ferrari, bmw, jaguar, bentely. etc etc. I wonder how the cavillac would have looked parked up there? it costs 10 euros a person to even get in the casino. thats 15 bucks can. and thats just to get to the slots. you have to pay an extra 10 euros to get to the tables and another 10 to get to the private rooms. oh, and thats if youre dressed appropriately. no shorts, no slobs. you have to have a jacket and tie after 7pm and you can rent them at the door for 30 euros. 45 can. all this to lose money?! kiss my slob ass. so we got some really great memories of the outside of the casino instead.
that was the french riveria.
after that we went to the italian riveria. we stayed in the italian paradise. we were in a national park named the cinque terre. 5 towns or something like that. theyre basically 5 small towns connected by a hiking trail. the point of this park is to hike between the 5 towns and check them out. the first day after we got our room and dumped our bags we went exploring here. neat little place. we stayed at the northern most town which is the biggest and has a beach. you can guess why we stayed here. anyways, each town is basically in a little cove and has hilly-mountains running into the med. after the first night we crashed and got ready for the hike...yep you heard me right. we went hiking. yes my wife hiked up her skirt and hit the trails. we got up at the butt crack of dawn and stretched and ate granola. isnt that what you are supposed to do before hiking? eat granola and nuts and yodel. so we left at 8:15 and hit the trails. the hike from our town to the next is the hardest and then the hike between the next 2 towns is the 2nd hardest and so on and so on. so we tackled the hardest part first, while we were still talking to each other. the place to buy a ticket to hike wasnt even open yet when we arrived. arent we ambitious? the hike goes up the hilly-mountain through farmers orchards where they grow everything italian from lemons, to grapes, to tomatoes, to hairy women, to olives. the hike was straight up for about 30 minutes and then it levels off with an amazing panoramic view of the med. not to mention that the sun was rising when we were there and there was no one around us. remember this is the butt crack of dawn and us laforets are serious hikers dont you know? long story short, the 2nd strecth was similar to the first and the last 2 "hikes" were pathways that took you along the water to the next town. the towns were all amazing and small town italian. cant wait to show you the pics. after our day we sat on the beach and kat slept while i hit a few beers. and we ate fresh focaccia with tomatoes and olives on them. yummm.
we spent 2 nights at the cinque terre and then went to siena. one of our favorites so far. maybe 50,000 people with an amazing church, good restaurants, and thieves. yup theives, but not on the street. in my bed!!! kat stole!!!!kat stole!!! and it wasnt one of those petty thefts, this was big time which calls for serious punishment. guess what kat stole??? mmmmmm???a donut! thief!!! i was so ashamed to be with her. ok heres what happened. we went to a small cafe for a coffe and a pastry before we took a day trip to florence. we ordered our stuff and the woman put it in a bag. she handed me a bag and montioned that our coffee was on the way. she spoke no english, and we speak no italian, so it was stupid hand motions and pointing to order. so because of our distraction making sure our coffee was on the way, i looked over the counter and saw a take out bag sitting there. i thought that the first pastry was in the first bag and the second was lying behind the counter. so innocently i told kat to grab the seocnd pastry. she innocently reached over the counter and grabbed the mystery bag. she put it in my bag because i didnt want mine yet, but held on to hers because kat was hungry. after we left the cafe kat dug into the bag and low and behold both of our pastries were in the bag, which brings to question....whats in my backpack? what did you do???we found the stolen goods was a donut so we did what anyone would have done. we ate it! the next day we did go back and pay for the theft, as kat couldnt live with the shame of a greasy, sugary, custard filled treat un-paid for on her mind. plus i bugged her all day threatening to tell the cops and tunr her in. other than that we did go to florence that day. busy, rude and dirty. it does however have a great church and 2 museums. 1 good, 1 crappy. the uffizi sucks. about 400 madonna and child and a whole bunch of italitan renaissance. it is good but we just dont appreciate it that much. plus when you have to make a reservation and still have to stand in line that doesnt sit well for me, with all my patience and all. after that we went to the accadamia. this is super small and houses the famous David, by Michealangeo. we were expecting maybe a statue that was 10 feet tall max. we came around the corner and bam! theres david! dink and all! his dink is like 10 feet big! (must be david laforet) just joking, but he was so much bigger than we thought he would have been. probably 20 feet high at least and the detail carved into the marble from veins to finger nalis and everything. and hes uncircumsized in case you were wondering.
now the captain is being overtaken by the real captain...
sweetie...

As soon as Josh starts talking about dinks it is time for me to take over. Aside from getting ripped off with the Uffizi and loving the david, we did get caught in a bit of a downpour but whatever...what can you do? Freezing, wet and all we did each enjoy the famous florence gelato...hunched under a portico slurping ice cream...doesnt get much better. Once we got back to Siena we searched for somewhere cheap to eat and...dont judge us...but we resorted to McDonald! McDonalds fries, salads and beer...mmm...
We arriced in Rome yesterday and got off to a blazing start by rishing off to check out the Coloseum...pretty cool knowing that animals and men fought to the death there about 2000 years ago...we also toured around the forum which was way more than both of us thought it was going to be. Our guide book was awesome as it saved us spending yet MORE money on an audioguide and i think that we were far better off than all the other camera carrying goofs...oh ya...i was a camera carrying goof but whatever. We later made an attempt to check out the spanish steps but there was a big film hoopla happening so we couldnt even get close. We found out today that ol' Bobby Deniro and Nicole Kidman were there wrapping up a film festival. If we'd known we coulda invited them for dinner with the Laforets! Screw Dom Perignon and caviar...let have pizza, pasta (no appy cuz we cant afford it) and house red! High rollers...we should head back to Monaco. Today we were up and out early checking out all the local churches...after both of us read Angels and Demons we had to go see the churches were Robert Langdon went of his adventues...it was kinda cool seeing St. Teresa in Ecstacy...we also saw the chains used on Peter before they crucifed him upside down, we saw Michealangelos Moses, and the prison that held Paul and Peter before they were martyred by the romans. Soooo much RICH history here. Lastly we went to the absolutely incredible Borghese Gallery where, both Josh and i agree, were the most wonderful sculptures done by Bernini...they were like butter. We stared in awe...sharing yet another audioguide (its so expensive)...but i was great. tonight we are heading to check out the Trastevere and having MORE pasta and MORE bread and MORE red wine. Balls to the walls...no restraint...no pain no gain...proceed until apprehended.
Were heading to Pompeii tomorrow and then Venice the next day so were pumped about that. Hope you all are doing well and look forward to chatting about our adventures soon!


Kat and Josh

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