But back to the fun part, here’s our itinerary:

• Quito, Ecuador (3 weeks) – Alonna will be studying Spanish while Ben remains in Boise
• Galapagos Islands, Ecuador (10 days) – Ben arrives in Ecuador we head out for an 8 day cruise
• Patagonia, Argentina & Chile (3 weeks) – Hiking, biking, and enjoying the outdoors
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (4 days) – A little time in the city before leaving South America
• Istanbul, Turkey (6 days) – We missed Istanbul on our Europe tour, so we’re going back!
• Egypt (9 days) – Traveling further back in history from where we left off in Ancient Greece and Rome
• South Africa (9 days) – We’ll base in Johannesburg and go on an African Safari
• New Zealand (1 month) – Focusing on the South Island and all the adventures we can manage in a month
• Australia (3 weeks) – Three weeks somewhere in Australia
• Hawaii (1 week) – Bonus! Our RTW ticket lets us stop in Hawaii on our way home

All of this starts January 8th when Alonna leaves for Ecuador – only 1 week away! Our dates are flexible, but we plan to be back to Boise by the end of May.

Please share this trip with us! We are extremely interested and open to having YOU travel with us at any point of this trip. If you were thinking of going to New Zealand, Egypt, Hawaii or somewhere else listed above this spring, let us know because we’d love to meet up. Also please share if you know anyone in any of these areas that would be interested in meeting or hosting us. The more the merrier!

Snow in Virginia

Snowball fight!

Hey, want to make giant snowball?

Mission accomplished

Hmm, what is Beth up to??

More snow in Minnesota

After arriving in an already snowy Minnesota a few days later, we learned that another storm system was making its way towards us. Over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we were once again blanketed in snow. Again – no harm done, we were still able to spend Christmas Eve & Day with my family as planned.  On Saturday, Kim flew out to Minnesota for a job interview and we headed out to play in the snow again – this time cross country skiing.

Although I’m wishing I could be somewhere warm right now, at least if we’re going to spend December in the cold US, we may as well have snow to play in!

P.S. We’re very close to getting our upcoming travel plans all worked out. I’ll post an update soon, promise!

Favorite Scenery: Chamonix, France

Favorite Time Spent with Family: Amsterdam, Belgium, and Paris with our Moms!

Favorite Ancient Ruins: Pompeii, Italy

 
Runners up: Pont du Gard in Nimes, France; Acropolis in Athens; and all of Rome

Favorite Hostel: Chalet La Source in Chamonix, France

Favorite Castle: Carcassonne

Favorite Landmark at Night: Eiffel Tower

Other Favorite Photos:

]]> http://www.benandalonna.com/2009/12/favorites-photos-of-europe/feed/ 3 http://www.benandalonna.com/2009/12/europe-collages/ http://www.benandalonna.com/2009/12/europe-collages/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:57:53 +0000 Alonna http://www.benandalonna.com/?p=1793 A while back, Ben created a program to create photo collages and mosaics.  If you’ve seen one of our poster-size prints, then you know how cool it is to stand far away to see the main image and then get up close to see all of the little photos that make it up.  If not, then you can zoom in and out one of these for a similar effect.  Here’s a few that I created using only our photos from Europe. Click on the image to see the full size.
 

Photo of our shadow on a small medieval street in Southern France:

We call the one in the middle a “Photo Collage” because it places many photos on top of each other, rotated, and a bit messy looking. Ben says it’s like throwing your photos on the coffee table and arranging them to create an image. The one on the right is a “Photo Mosaic” in a sort of brick-pattern, which gives a more straight and organized look.
 
[Ben: The bricking pattern allows the program to use vertical and horizontal images - in this case 3 horizontal for each vertical, if you look close you should be able to spot the repeating pattern.  Note that it intentionally overlaps the images too, for a more "organic" look.  Any place that two or more photos overlap, the program actually decides algorithmically which image should overlap the other.]
 

Venice, Italy

Here’s a zoomed in look at the door in the middle of the photo. See how it creates the arched line out of photos?

Pont du Gard (ancient Roman aqueduct) – Nimes, France

Leaning Tower – Pisa, Italy

Eiffel Tower – Paris, France

Pompeii

The law room, or 'Basillica'

The forum and Mt. Vesuvius (now caved in)

A major pedestrian-only street

Mosaic floor art

Original mosaic (Naples)

Columns still staning

A cool mosaic that we couldn't get closer to

One-way street with stepping stones

A large theater

Pretty scenery around Pompeii

Pompeii Amphitheater

A fancy house in Pompeii

Alonna, Ben, Pompeii & Mt. Vesuvius

You can never have too many columns

The Forum (main market and meeting place)

The Forum

Main entrance to Pompeii (used to be by sea)

 

Herculaneum

Walking on 2,000 year old mosaic

A well-preserved room, even the doors!

Old & new towns of Herculaneum

The new city was built on top of the ash

Ben with his backpacks

Herculaneum, Italy

 

Amalfi Coast

Also while we were based in Sorrento, we took a bus trip along the Amalfi Coast, a popular resort area south of Naples with beautiful cliffs-meeting-the-ocean scenery. Most of the excitement of this trip was during the bus ride, which winds along the rugged coastline on a tiny road with huge drop-offs into the ocean.

On the bus - front row!

Blurry view from the bus

Better view from the bus

Cool church in Amalfi

Strong liquor made from lemons

Amalfi, Italy

Ben on the giant cement jacks

The town of Amalfi

Quite the bus ride

 

Pantheon

We’ve seen some amazing churches, but you gotta love the simplicity and ancient grandeur of this Roman “church” built to honor all of the gods. The Pantheon is very well preserved because it was converted into a Christian church later on. The best thing about this building is the dome, which shows yet again how advanced the Roman’s were 2,000 years ago. Michelangelo studied this ancient dome when making plans for St. Peter’s Basilica. I never cease to be amazed that it took 1400 years for people to recreate something as simple (by today’s standards) as a dome or realistic looking art.
 

Trevi Fountain

We stopped by the Trevi fountain, and I got a kick out of how touristy this spot is. Artistically and historically it’s not all that significant (relatively), but this was the most densely packed tourist area we found in Rome. The fountain was nice, but there’s just something about seeing hundreds of people posing for a photo that makes it seem so lame.
 

• Life on the Road – a 3-month update on me and Ben
• Career Breaker Round-up – description of 3 “career break” couples, including us
• Negotiating a Sabbatical – includes tips from me
• Giving thanks for Career Breaks – what we’re thankful for on our travels

We’ll probably keep updating the website now and then, with some general observations from Europe, maybe some details on what we packed and how our budget turned out, and of course, stay tuned as we plan the next stage of our adventure.

Rome: 150 B.C. to 2009 A. D. and everything in between

Ben and I definitely saved the best for last on this Europe trip. We’ve fallen in love with both Italy and Greece, where we’ve spent our entire last month. And our very last stop, Rome, is a culmination of everything we’ve seen up to this point. With ancient ruins everywhere, impressive churches on every corner, museums with great Renaissance art, and a slightly chaotic modern city, Rome really packs a lot into one place. Although we’re a little tired of sightseeing, Rome has made it pretty easy to continue to be amazed.

We’ve seen Roman ruins throughout our trip, but nothing compares to what is here in Rome. There’s a Roman amphitheater in Nimes, France? It’s tiny compared to the Colosseum. You’ve seen Roman statues in a museum in Vienna? The Vatican museum and Borghese Gallery will blow you away. Frescoes and mosaics buried by a volcano at Pompeii and preserved for 2000 years? We were surprised to find that the National Museum of Rome had an almost more impressive collection. I’m not trying to degrade these or any other places, but Rome is really “it”.

Our second day, we tackled the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica.  We saw some of the very best Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that exist, and the epitome of the Italian Renaissance painting in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael rooms.   And there’s no way to describe St. Peter’s except HUGE – larger by far than any cathedral we’ve seen on this trip.
 

Nafplio

We spent 3 nights in the small resort town of Nafplio.  The town itself is a great destination – with a pier, beaches, a cute downtown with shopping & restaurants, and cool castles from Venetian and Ottoman occupations.  We could have spent a lot more time there, but we were too busy exploring the nearby ruins…

Greece is literally covered in ancient ruins.  In Athens, if you dig anywhere you’ll probably uncover 2000-year old houses (I’ve heard this causes a lot of headaches for construction).  And the countryside is the same way.  Driving around, there are signs for Archeological Sites probably every 10 miles.  It’s amazing.  We were able to visit a few sights within a small radius of Nafplio, but I think we could return and spend months exploring the rest of the country.

Here’s some photos of Nafplio – we caught beautiful sunset one evening as we hiked around the castles.
 

Epidavros

On our way to Nafplio from Athens we stopped at Epidavros, which, among other ruins, has an enormous theater from the 4th century B.C. The acoustics in the theater are amazing, I climbed up to the top row, Ben stood in the middle and talked, and I could hear him perfectly.
 

Argos

The next day we explored various ruins in the area, including the nearby town of Argos. There was an ancient town (described by our hotel owner as the “first planned city in the world”), another large theater (carved directly out of the hillside!), and a Roman bath house and aqueduct. As a side note, there’s a lot of Roman ruins in Greece. As is the case all over Europe, many cities and buildings are occupied, added on to, and rebuilt over hundreds of years by different rulers. When Rome conquered Greece around 150 B.C., they moved in and built up the cities with their new modern techniques (running water, roads, great buildings, etc). So it’s very common to see a theater like the one in Argos which has had many modifications over the years. This one was built by the Greeks, and later the Romans added cages and nets to allow animal games on stage, and awnings to shade the attendees, and even later the ability to flood the stage for some kind of water performances. It’s fascinating to see these kind of ruins built on top of ruins.
 

Mycenae

Saving the best for last, we visited Ancient Mycenae on our 3rd day in Nafplio. The Mycenaean civilization existed in Greece between 1700 and 1100 B.C. which is basically before Ancient Greece really got started. In other words, this is OLD! The site is famous for the “Lion’s Gate”, a carved rock above the main entrance to the city. There’s also a huge tomb called the Treasury of Atreus, which has a 264,500 lb stone above the entrance. Nobody really knows how they were able to hoist up that huge of a rock. Crazy.
 

Athens is a huge sprawling city, but all of the tourist sites are concentrated near the Acropolis (a big rock in the center of the city with the Parthenon and other ancient temples). This area of Athens is really nice, with pretty pedestrian streets, shopping, cafe’s, museums, and ancient ruins sprinkled throughout. Most of the buildings in Athens are white or light-colored, giving the whole city a pretty Mediterranean look.  Overall we really loved Athens. Here’s some of our photos…

Acropolis from a nearby hill

The city of Athens

The Parthenon

Another temple on the Acropolis

Caryatids (columns that are statues of women)

Ben and the Parthenon

We hiked up that hill later

Parthenon

Ben and Alonna at the Parthenon

Ancient columns waiting to be put back together

Theater on the slope of the Acropolis

Theater of Dionysus

Ancient Agora (more Greek ruins)

The Acropolis

Temple at the Ancient Agora

Statue at the Ancient Agora

They loved double rows of columns

Ancient Roman ruins in Athens

Bronze statue from 460 BC

Greek Statue from 130 BC

Souvlaki (also known as Gyros or Kebabs)

 

Beware of Dog

Pompeii’s answer to Panda Express

When you walk through Pompeii you’re stepping on the actual paving stones as they were placed thousands of years ago.  The stones were old even when Vesuvius erupted, with ruts from chariot wheels that were worn over centuries.

Think of the big stones in the road as “crosswalks”

Some other interesting facts about life in Pompeii

• They didn’t just have running water, they had 3 separate water lines running throughout the city – one each for public fountains, private residence, and public baths so that they could prioritize water shutoffs in the case of a shortage.  But the pipes were made of lead.
• Every morning they would flood the streets of Pompeii with water to clean up horse crap.  The sidewalks are elevated for this reason, and there are large stepping stones in the middle of the streets for pedestrians (chariots could pass right over these).  One stepping stone means one-way street, two means two-way street.
  
• They loved to paint faux windows on interior walls, generally showing some garden scene or some people gathered around a statue or something of that nature.
  
• To save money, columns in less important buildings were “faux marble” – brick covered by stucco covered by a thin layer of ground marble stucco.
  

After Pompeii we also visited Herculaneum – a city that was buried in lava instead of ash – and the Italy National Archeological Museum, which has most of the best sculptures, mosaics, and frescoes from Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Some pictures from all 3:

Boat tie-ups along what was the docks of Pompeii

The original sidewalks in Herculaneum are still mostly in place

Neptune and Aphrodite mosaic

Tile mosaic at the baths in Herculaneum.

The quality of some of the Roman art is surprising.

This portrait from Herculaneum is famous.

Hanging out at the Herculaneum gym

Maybe not the best way to die, being covered in hot ash

HAVE means 'hail to you.' Pompeii's version of a welcome mat

 

Volterra

We took a day trip from Siena to visit a small hill town called Volterra. It took a few long bus rides to get there and back, but it was totally worth it. We saw the beautiful countryside of Tuscany and got away from the main tourist track. The town of Volterra was cute and had some interesting history as well. It was a major town in Etruscan times, which is a fairly advanced Pre-Roman civilization in Italy around 700 B.C. We saw Etruscan ruins (arches, tombs, etc) and a museum with some impressive artifacts (grave stones, bowls, jewelry, and art). There were even ancient Roman ruins – an amphitheater from 1st century B.C.
 

But our main activity in Volterra was biking. We rented mountain bikes for a few hours, and headed straight downhill to the valley, and then powered our way back up. It was fairly difficult, but we enjoyed the strenuous exercise (which we’ve definitely been lacking) and biking is a great way to see more of a place and get off the beaten track.
 

Orvieto

After Siena we spent 2 nights in Orvieto. This was another cute old town built on top of a hill (they did this for defensive purposes in medieval times). Orvieto had great views and a very impressive Duomo (similar to the on in Siena). But honestly the highlight of this visit was cooking in the kitchen of our apartment! We went out of our way and spent extra $$ to find a place with a kitchen since we were tired of eating out and craving some home-made spaghetti. One thing we’ve found in Italy is that they have really great and really cheap tomato sauce (pomodora). It’s basically just plain tomato sauce (like Prego without all the extra seasonings and vegetables), and then we add some fresh ingredients of our own. It seems funny to cook spaghetti in Italy when we could get great pasta at any restaurant in town, but it’s so delicious, much cheaper, and really fun to make ourselves. Also, I even tried making my own bruschetta. It was so good… I think the key is the very fresh and delicious Olive Oil in Italy. Yum!
 

So that was our very limited stay in Tuscany… just enough to whet our appetite and convince us to return someday!

This is the basic idea:

At any given moment there are at least 10 people trying to stand just right so they can take one of these pictures and use it as their facebook profile.  We took no such pictures for ourselves, but did take a few of other people.  Out of context it looks a little ridiculous.

Other than the tower, there is also a beautiful cathedral, baptistry and cemetery.  Pisa has a unique style of architecture referred to as Pisan-Romanesque – basically extensive use of arcades – columns and arches on the outside of the building -  that make the buildings look light and fragile.

One of the great ironies of tourism is that it’s no fun when there are a lot of other tourists around.  Pisa is the very embodiment of this uncomfortable paradox, so we only spent 4 hours there and then jumped back on a train for our next destination…

The main sites in Siena are Il Campo and the Duomo (Cathedral). Il Campo is a round amphitheater-like piazza spreading out from the City Hall at the bottom.
 

The Duomo in Siena is incredible. The facade on the front is probably the best we’ve seen. But the inside of the Cathedral is just as impressive – with marble mosaics all over the floor. There was some good art as well, including a Michelangelo statue (and yes – his statues are noticeably better than others), and a room with really cool frescos all over the walls. Apparently they wanted to build even more Duomo, but it was never completed, as you can see from an unfinished wall outside.
 

A few more photos from the streets of Siena.
 

Following are photos from the 5 towns that make up the Cinque Terre. Between two days, we hiked between all of the towns except one link (towns 3-4).

Town #1: Riomaggiore

This is where we started our hiking. The path between this town and the next, Manarola, is called “Via Dell’Amore” meaning the trail of lovers. It was flat and paved and sure, romantic. There were multiple places that people had carved their names (i.e. Ben + Alonna = LOVE), and people also left little padlocks symbolizing their love.
 

Town #2: Manarola

This was a pretty town partially perched up on a cliff. The coastline trail between this town and the next was closed due to landslide danger, so we decided to take a higher trail up on the hillside. We cheated a little by taking a bus up, but then we walked all across the mountain through vineyards and olive trees, before a really steep descent into town #3, Corniglia. This totally wore us out so we called it a day.
 

Town #3: Corniglia

We didn’t spend much time here since we were exhausted, but it was pretty!
 

Town #4: Vernazza (our home town)

We stayed 3 nights in a tiny room in Vernazza overlooking the main street. The town was really cute but full of American tourists. There’s nothing wrong with American tourists in general (especially nice “Rick Steves tourists”), but it’s weird to be all in the same place, and it takes a little of the charm away. Anyway, this town had a nice little harbor, and a castle tower up on the top of the hill that I spent some time relaxing at one evening.
 

Town #5: Monterosso

Ahh, finally some nice bright sunshine on our second day.  This day we hiked from the beach town of Monterosso to Vernazza – which was a pretty difficult hike, but great views.
 

Ben and I spent a full 7 nights in an apartment in Florence.  It was perfect, and exactly the relaxing break that we needed. Staying put in one place (and knowing it in advance) allowed us to enjoy some things we’d been craving… examples: “Colorado Bulldog” drinks and a puzzle.
 

We spent a lot of time in this cute little apartment, so I thought I’d share some photos:
 

Florence

The city itself is small but bustling, with major history and museums.  Florence was birthplace of the Italian Renaissance – where finally Europe came out of the dark ages and made major cultural strides in art, science, music, philosophy, etc.  Most of the main artists from this time were from or lived in Florence (Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael, Donatello, etc).

Besides hanging out at the apartment, we basically just wandered around the city.  We did have a couple must-see items on our list, which we managed to squeeze in between the puzzle and Colorado Bulldogs: Uffizi Gallery (amazing Italian art), Academia (museum with Michelangelo’s “David”), the Duomo (big beautiful cathedral that dominates the city skyline), and Piazza Michelangelo (up on a hill with great city views).  Here’s some photos:
 
 

One of the highlights for me was seeing Michelangelo’s David.  It’s very obvious why this statue is famous.  For one, it’s enormous – apparently the first giant statue since Roman times.  And I’ve been told that it perfectly embodies the “Renaissance Man” – strong, determined, and beautifully made by God.  But the key is simply that it’s very beautiful.  We’ve seen a lot of sculptures, new and old, but for me this one blows all of them out of the water. I secretly snapped this photo of David (photos not allowed). Unfortunately I think it’s impossible to show the scale in a photo. The second photo below is another cool statue I liked of Perseus with the head of Medusa.
 

A random side note – I bought a pair of jeans in Florence from H&M.  In general jeans are a big no-no for backpacking (heavy and take forever to dry), but I have to say, it feels so great to have jeans again!  I think I’ve worn them every day since I bought them.

Anyway, we just spent 2 nights in the Cinque Terre, five towns beautifully situated on the Italian Riviera.  Today we traveled to Siena, stopping for the afternoon in Pisa (where the famous leaning tower is).  Photos coming soon.

Some images from Venice:

Church Facades

At the peak there were over 200 places of worship on the tiny island of Venice.  For minor churches, the standard approach seems to have been to build a large warehouse-like building, put a gorgeous facade on the front, fill it with priceless art and call it a church.  They’re sprinkled all over Venice, and contribute to the “wow what’s that, it’s not even in the guidebook” feel everywhere you go in Venice.  These are in addition to more architecturally interesting churches like Basilica San Marco, Santa Maria della Salute, and Basilica dei Frari.

Basilica San Marco

The most important church in Venice is the Basilica San Marco, which is free to enter.  The interior of the church is mind-blowing.  The walls and ceilings are covered in tile mosaics that make generous use of gold tiles, and the floors are intricately tiled with impossibly complex patterns.  Pictures are forbidden, of course, but I’m not sure pictures can really capture it.  We took a few anyway.

We paid a little extra to visit the Basilica treasury, which mostly contained hands, legs, teeth, and miscellaneous bone fragments of various saints that were brought back during the crusades.  I couldn’t find the full story on these body parts anywhere.  It definitely felt like looking into the very different mindset of the crusaders.  Basilica dei Frari also had a wonderful collection of hands, teeth, and femurs.

So that’s Venice as we saw it in our 2 days there.

After Budapest we took a budget flight to Venice, Italy and spent two nights.  Venice was amazing.  We spent most of our time wandering the streets and enjoying beautiful views of canals, gondolas, churches, and Venetian style buildings at every turn.  We’ll post photos soon.

Following Venice we decided to chill out in Florence for a week.  We’ve been here 7 nights in a cute little apartment near the city center.  It’s been really nice to relax, unpack our bags, have a kitchen, and stay put for a while.  Unfortunately, I got some bad news from home that my Grandfather passed away.  It’s been tough to be far away from my family right now, but I’ve been using Skype to keep in touch and I’ve been taking it easy most of this week.  Grandpa was a caring, funny, and generous man and I will miss him.

Despite this bad news, we are excited to be in Italy, one of the places we were most looking forward to on this trip.  So far it hasn’t let us down – beautiful scenery, amazing history and art, great food, and nice people with cute Italian accents.  Our plan for the rest of the trip is to travel through Italy, hitting the following places: Cinque Terre, Pisa, Siena, other Hill Towns in Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Amalfi coast.  We will also be spending 6 nights in Greece to visit Athens, Peloponnese, and maybe an island.  Originally we also wanted to see Croatia and Istanbul, Turkey, but at this point in the trip we’ve slowed down our pace and I think we’ll have to cut them out.  But no worries, we’ll just add it to the list of places to come back to!

Thanks to everyone for following along on our trip.  I’ve enjoyed using this blog as a way to share our photos and what we’ve been up to.  Until next time, Ciao!

Here’s some things we liked about our time in Budapest:

• Cheap & good hostel
• Great hostel manager with a cool name (Zoltan)
• Awesome hostel guests and good conversations
• House of Terror Museum (terrors of the Nazis and the Soviet Union)
• Relaxing, hanging out in the hostel, cooking our own meals
• Goulash soup

Less-desirable things about our time in Budapest:

• Lousy weather
• Confusing and totally overrated Thermal Baths (sorry to those of you who love them)
• Run down and dirty feel of the city
• Deafeningly loud subway system
• More expensive food than we expected, even the groceries

Here’s some photos we took of the city.

Matthias Church

The roof has cool tiles

Matthias church interior

Art Nouveau interior

13th century artwork

Cool sandcastle-like Fisherman's Bastion

Fisherman's Bastion, built ~1900

Great views of Budapest

Budapest Parliment building (neo-gothic)

Castle in Buda side of Budapest

First bridge to connect Buda and Pest

View of Buda castle

Old communist statue

Huge indoor market (mostly for tourists)

House of Terror museum

Typical street in Budapest

2nd largest synagogue in the world

Great Synagogue and Holocaust memorial

 

So anyway, while we were in Vienna I read about this bike trail nearby along the Danube River, and we decided to give it a shot. We wanted a little change from the big city sightseeing; to head into the country and get some exercise other than walking. So we headed to Krems, Austria on a morning train, found a hotel, rented bikes and headed down the Danube. It was so beautiful and we really enjoyed the ride. The trail is paved, fairly well-marked, and follows the river through little towns and countless vineyards. We only rode an out-and-back of 12 miles one way, but the entire trail is much longer and you can do multiple-day trips. Since it’s October the grapes were ripe and so we saw people picking and loading them into trucks. It also smelled like grapes… but not really in a good way, it smelled like rotten fruit. Overall the whole trip was really fun and we were glad that we went a little out of the way and spent a day on it.

Ben biking through vineyards

Danube River, Austria

Lots of grapes

View from a random old church

Danube River

Split, Austria

It took a lot of tries to get this photo

Pretty scenery along the Danube

Biking along the river

This side of the river had tons of apples

Ben biking through the apple orchard

Pretty town of Durnstein

Self portrait #1

Self portrait #2

Our base town of Krems