Eeeewww!

This totally grossed me out yesterday. I was at the Ipercoop (the Italian version of Walmart) checking out, and the woman in front of me was buying baby food. I looked at the jar, and it was labeled "cavallo" (horse), with a picture of a horse on the outside. Yes, I am aware that many people in the world eat horsemeat, and I have seen it in the meat section at the store and in the sales papers. However, the thought of feeding a baby pureed horsemeat just disgusted me. And with a nice picture of a horse on the jar! I try to keep an open mind about cultural differences, but some things I just cannot reconcile in my mind.

Oberammergau

The first week in March, Emily and I joined Jeff for his work trip to Oberammergau, Germany. This was Emily's and my first trip to Germany, or anywhere outside of Italy, since we've been here. Jeff was going to a class Monday through Friday, but we decided to add an extra day to each end, going up Saturday, 28 February and returning Saturday, March 7. We were told that the trip would take about 4-5 hours. However, due to snow and road construction, traffic and road closings, it took about 9 hours for us to get up to Oberammergau. It was a beautiful trip up, through the mountains in Italy, Austria, and Germany, but very long.

There were about 2 feet of snow on the ground in Oberammergau when we arrived. Emily and I built a snowman and had a snowball fight on Sunday afternoon. You can tell that Emily is a Georgia girl, she had no idea how to build a snowman, and couldn't hit me with a snowball more than once in 10 tries. But we still had fun!


Emily played in the snow most every day while we were there. One day we went to the indoor pool facility just up the road, where Emily met a little Turkish girl that she played with. On Tuesday, we went to "Bavarian night" at the NATO club, where they had a buffet of local foods to try, and even an accordion player. Most every night we went out to local restaurants and enjoyed the German food. We had some excellent meals, but I wouldn't want to eat German food every day - it's much too heavy!

On Wednesday, we went to Neuschwanstein Castle for a tour. On the way to the castle, we stopped at the Wieskirchen (the church in the meadow), which is out in the middle of nowhere, but supposedly on the site of a miracle (a wooden Jesus weeping).

The church is very beautiful, but has no heat, so it was freezing inside!

Then, on to the castle, which was built by King Ludwig of Bavaria in the mid-nineteenth century. The outside is spectacular, but only 18 of the 200 rooms inside were finished, so the inside is not as impressive. The rooms that were finished were quite grand, but there were only a few of them. King Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances after his family found that he was spending all of the family money building these huge castles and such.


And, of course, we just walked around town enjoying the beautiful Alpine scenery.


This peak was visible from the back garden of our hotel. It was huge and rough-looking, but someone had climbed to the top and put up a wooden cross.

On Friday, we went sledding in Garmisch. It was the first time Emily had ever been sledding.

Emily had a few wipeouts.


Jeff got up some good speed!

We all got in on the fun!

It started snowing on Friday and snowed all night. It looked like about another 4-6 inches by Saturday morning. It was a very fluffy wet snow that sat beautifully on the trees and everything else. Below are some pictures of what it looked like as we were leaving.

The roads were open for the trip home, but there was still some road construction and traffic. It took about 6 hours to get back. It was neat to watch the snow disappear on the way back. We left Germany covered in snow, and came down through Austria and Italy, watching the snow retreat to the upper reaches of the mountains. By the time we got back to Ferrara, the weather was springlike! Germany and Oberammergau were beautiful, but after a week, we were ready to come home.

News Flash

We interrupt your regular blog reading to bring you the latest news from the Cranford family. We are having a baby! It will be appearing sometime in early October 2009. Below is the first picture of our little bean at approximately 10 weeks. It is already quite lively! Stay tuned for further updates.

Firenze in February

Emily was out of school the last week of February. They called it the "White Week," and it had something to do with Carnevale (Mardi Gras), but I'm not sure what. So, we decided to take a couple of days and go to Firenze (Florence). Jeff and I had been to Firenze in 2006 on vacation, but Emily had not been. It is a very beautiful and nice city, and we had a good time.

We took the train down Monday night, and Tuesday morning headed out to see the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as the Duomo. We got there before it opened to tourists, and ended up being the first ones inside that morning. It wasn't too crowded that early, and I got several good pictures.

This is a view of the front of the church. There are so many buildings around, you can't really get far enough away to get a full view of the front with no obstructions.

Jeff and Emily in front of one of the main doors to the church. Gives you an idea of how big and ornate they are.

This is the top of the dome, with people out on the walkway around the cupola. We did not go up there.
The marble floor inside the church. The inside is not as ornate as the outside, but it is still very beautiful.
This is the mosaic floor under the church. You can go down under the floor of the main cathedral and see some of the excavations to older parts of the church, as well as some of the Roman structures that predate the church entirely.
Here is a view of the side of the cathedral, where you can see the dome a little better.

After we saw the church, we had booked a tour of the Galleria dell'Accademia, where Michelangelo's David is housed. Jeff and I had not seen it when we were in Firenze previously, so we wanted to do it this time. It was well worth it. Everyone has seen pictures of the David (and you're not allowed to take any in the museum), but there is no way you can truly appreciate it if you don't see it in person. The exquisite detail is breathtaking. There are many other works of art in the Galleria, but the David is definitely the centerpiece, and you can stand and marvel at it for hours. We learned some interesting facts from our guide on the tour, but I'm not sure that it was worth it to book the tour. The line was not very long at the Accademia, so I don't know that we saved any time there.

That afternoon, the other half of our tour took place at the Uffizi Galleries, with a different guide. That one was definitely worth the tour. Not only did we get to bypass the line, but the Uffizi can be totally overwhelming (we had gone there previously without a guide), and our guide was extremely well-informed, and full of interesting facts about the works of art that we saw, as well as the history of the Galleries themselves. There are many masterpieces in the Uffizi, and, while we certainly did not see them all, we got a good overview and saw several. No photos allowed in the Uffizi, either, though we got a few outside.

The courtyard of the Uffizi is surrounded by statues of artists, scientists, and important historical figures. Here is Jeff in front of the statue of Michelangelo.

Emily was fascinated by the "moving statues" outside the museum. Here she is with one of them.

Just down from the Uffizi Galleries is the Arno River and the Ponte Vecchio (pictured above), the oldest bridge in Firenze. It has been a center of trade since the Middle Ages.

On Wednesday, our last day in Firenze, we went to the Pitti Palace, which we had not visited before. We toured the main art galleries (which were awesome), and the Royal Apartments (also beautiful).
This is the Piazza in front of the Palazzo Pitti. No pictures allowed inside.

Before time to catch our train home, we went back to the Piazza dei Signoria for a last look at the Palazzo Vecchio (unfortunately no time for a tour), and the statues.

The Palazzo Vecchio.Emily with her favorite statue of Perseus and Medusa.

We had a very enjoyable trip. We didn't see everything, but it's only a 90 minute train ride to go back again, so I'm sure we will!

Porto Garibaldi and Comacchio

On Sunday, February 22, we went with some British friends of ours to the beach towns of Porto Garibaldi and Comacchio, about 40 minutes away. It was, of course, too cold for swimming, but we took a nice walk on the beach and the kids enjoyed picking up seashells.

Porto Garibaldi is apparently quite the popular beach destination in the summer, but was fairly quiet on a Sunday in February.


The beach was just covered in seashells of all different colors, shapes, and sizes.

Despite the chill, there were still people out sailing!



Here's our crew: Sue, Mick, and Jeff, with Charlie, Kirsten, and Emily in front.

From Porto Garibaldi, we went a short ways over to Comacchio, which has a few bridges and canals like Venice.

The three-way bridge in Comacchio.


Emily and Kirsten in front of the bridge.

A large boat in the canal. Not sure how they got it in there!

I hadn't really realized how close we were to the coast, but it's nice to know that, in the summer, we'll be able to run over to the beach for the day. We bought some fresh fish in Porto Garibaldi, and Mick cooked up a lovely halibut for dinner that night - mmm!