John and Beth's Visit

At the end of July, John and Beth Craig came to visit us. Beth was my roommate at Bradley and is also a cousin to one of my co-workers, Kelly. Kelly moved over here to Switzerland last fall to work in another department.

They got in on a Tuesday here in Switzerland. They spent the first couple of days with us in Switzerland and had almost the worst weather ever, cold and rainy. Gene took them to Broc and Gruyeres on their first day, while I was at work. Then on their second day, they went over to Chamonix, France to see Mont Blanc, again while I was at work. They had fondue and french onion soup...our traditional meal there...very yummy! Thursday, they spent their time in Morges and Lausanne walking around the water fronts and seeing the Lausanne cathedral. Some beautiful views, but still more rain and cold weather. Thursday night, Kelly came over for dinner and we all packed to go to Italy.

Friday morning was quite early...had a 6 am flight from Geneva to Rome. We got in to Rome about 8 am and found that the metro was not working. Boo!! We were planning to spend the day seeing the sites in Rome very quickly and the best way to do that is to take the metro. Plan B - walking and hop-on, hop-off bus tour to get us to the main places. But, one good aspect...BEAUTIFUL weather. :) We first headed to the Colosseum. Which is quite impressive no matter how many times you see it. We had some fun trying to take a group picture using the camera timers on 3 different cameras at once. We did get at least one that turned out. :) From there, we caught the bus so we could go to other places on the other side of the city. We hopped off at the stop near the Hard Rock Cafe and caught a very quick lunch. After lunch, we walked to the Trevi Fountain and the Panteon, which was finally fully uncovered (it has had scaffolding in front of it the other times we have been there). We then caught the bus to the Vatican City. We got in to St. Peter's Basillica and walked around. The sun shining in the windows near the alter was beautiful. We then walked around a bit outside the Basillica and eventually had to catch the bus back to Termini, the main train station, to catch our train to Florence.

We got in to Florence and had a nice dinner in one of the open squares near our hotel. Our hotel was next to the Uffizi (GREAT location). We got a big open apartment that all 5 of us could stay in. Gene and I had the tree house in the apartment. The room was upstairs and had a HUGE beam going through the middle in the ceiling. You had to duck your head in the room at all times. Would be great for families and the kids could stay up there, not entirely easy for adults. But, it was fun. In the square in front of the Uffizi, there was a band playing and was great to just listen to for a while before we hit the beds.

On Saturday morning, we had our cooking class...bright and early. Yes, an Italian cooking class. It actually was great fun and they all teased me quite a lot about me cooking. We first went to an Italian market. There we tasted different olive oils and balsmic vinegars. We also got all the indgredients for our cooking at the market. We then walked to the cooking class kitchen. It was fun to walk from the meeting place, to the market to the kitchen, as we had to walk through the street markets selling all the fabulous Italian souveniers! It was hard not to just stay there (at least for the girls). Our class was taught by Giovanni and we learned how to make bruschetta, eggplant/tomato/mozzeralla/basil sandwiches, homemade pasta egg noodles, homemade ragu sauce, and of course for dessert...tiramisu (my most favorite part). The class started about 10 am and lasted until about 3 pm. It was a really good time and good food with friends!! :)

After our class was finished, we walked back towards our hotel. We did a bit of shopping and site seeing along the way. We dropped some stuff off at the hotel and then headed to the Ponte Vecchio to look at the River Arno, the views were amazing and so relaxing, as usual. Again, we had beautiful weather here in Florence!! :) We walked around a bit more before heading to dinner...Hard Rock Cafe. ;) We love our Hard Rock food! After dinner, we walked back to the Arno to get some night pictures and to enjoy the weather. On our way back to the hotel that night, there was an impromptu gathering of singers that sang great acapella songs. It was very beautiful. :)

Sunday, we got up early and caught the hop-on, hop-off bus. We went up to the look-out that has veiws of the city above the Arno and Ponte Vecchio. It had rained overnight and the clouds were still out. The pictures we took were wonderful with the darker clouds in the background. We spent a bit of time here taking a group picture again with the 3 sets of camera timers. This time we were able to do it in 1 shot though! We got back on the bus and headed to Fiesole to look down on the city from another view and of course to see about possible Italian purse purchases. ;) It started to rain while we were up taking pictures. Again, we tried to take a group picture. It was a bit more tricky with the cobble stone, distance to get from the cameras to where we were standing/sitting and the slopes. It took several tries and was quite funny! :) Shortly after we finished, we decided to walk up to the church and right when we got to the top it started pouring!! We got stuck there for a while. On our way down to catch the bus, we spent a while in the purse shop. From Fiesole, we caught the bus back. We rode up top, even though it had been raining and since stopped. We dried the seats and then thought it would be ok, until we got to the trees...we all had to keep ducking to avoid the tree branches and the rain that came out of them. We still managed to get a bit wet from the raindrops coming out of the trees. We stopped at the Piazza Pitti to grab pizza for lunch...still the best pizza ever! We then walked to get gelato at the place we discovered the trip before with my mom and Betty. Again, fabulous!! I had the chocolate mousse, tiramisu and one other chocolate cookie type gelato. The mousse was whipped to perfection and the other two were just as great. :) Then, it was time to go to the train station and catch our train home.

At the train station, we found out that there had been a fire in Rome the day before in one of the stations along the way to Florence. Which then meant that all trains from Rome to Florence were delayed. Our train was coming from Rome and was heading to Milan. We found out from the train station officials that we should just get on the next train going to Milan and just stand. The next train that was coming from Rome to Milan...it was originally an 11 am train and it was now after 3:30 pm. So, everyone jumped on this train. It was extremely crowded. We had to stand in the entry way in the train and just wait for the next 1 hr and 45 min. Not fun, but had to be done. In Milan, we had to run to catch our train to Switzerland. We had 5 minutes and we managed to make it. We finally made it home to the apartment sometime between 9 and 10 pm. It was a long day, but a great time.

On Monday, Gene, John and Beth went to Geneva for the afternoon. They had more fondue and walked around the waterfront area there and did some souvenier shopping. On the way back, they stopped at some wineries and tried out a few different local wines. We then went to Kelly's for dinner...fajitas! :) On Tuesday, Gene took John and Beth to Montreux where they went to the Chateau de Chillon. For dinner, we all got together for Gene's french onion soup and fondue. After, we watched some movies and hung out talking about the fabulous time we had together. Wednesday morning, Beth and John caught a train to Stuttgart, Germany to see their friends there for a few days before heading home.