Hangin' with family in Madrid and Villalba , Spain

The whole gang !

Laura and John at the park in Madrid.

Clara, Anna, Laura and John at THE picnic.

We all played in the creek.

"Come on in, the water's fine!"

"Hi everybody!"

Brothers

Hey Al, this rum and coke is for you.

And so is this one...

And even the guy from the coke commercial is having one for you Al!

An afternoon in Madrid.

Our final night a O' Barquiño

Mardid was a wonderful week. We stayed between Mike and Maria's home in Villalba and Paloma's parents home in Madrid. Reuniting with everyone after wandering the globe was great. We are so glad that Mark, Paloma, Laura and John could come down too! It was one of the best visits to Madrid, without a doubt. We all (the whole gang!) spent one day picnicking outside of Madrid by a small creek in green, soft grass. It was a beautiful day spending time together in the sun while the kids ran throughout the tall grass and played in the creek - the big kids too. It's pretty cool when after traveling for so long and seeing so many amazing places that we're still having highlights and days unrivaled. That day was surely one of them. Thank you everybody for coming together and of course for all of the hospitality. It was so good to see you again.

Barcelona, Spain

In the gothic quarterof Barcelona.

Outside Sagrada Familia.

Inside. Wow.

A view fromtowers that look just like those ones.

Mmmm, ...

Relaxing in Park Guell.

Strolling through Gaudi's mind

Watching tourists is funny.

A view of Barcelona and the sea.

The best olive Ashlei has ever eaten. Ever.

Wow, we loved Barcelona. A week more would have barely been sufficient. I know that we say that we loved a lot of places and that we wanted more time and blah blah blah, but it's true. and for Barcelona it's really true. The city is big and beautiful and full of life and art and culture and architecture and great food.

By the way, that olive above was the best olive ever, for real.

We splurged on ourselves for the last two nights and rented ourselves a little flat! It was pretty fancy of us but was really comfortable and a little way to celebrate. It was worth it.

Onward to Madrid

Venice, Italy

A view down a Venice canal

A very important man about town
The real Venice dirty laundy and all!

Italy is yummy...

Venice more than met all of our expectations. It was like walking around a movie set. Everything you see is so picturesque that you almost can´t belive it´s real. What a great way to end our first visit to Italy. We are now with family in Spain and have been pleasently distracted from the blog! We leave for New York tommorrow and will report on Spain from there.

Florence and Pisa ,Italy

Ah, Florence...
Inside the dome you see above.
The view from the dome.

Ashlei helping out.

Florence is a beautiful town and the leaning tower of Pisa is really quite funny to see. We saw some great art and had some good fun too - could have spent another week just hanging around Florence. Alas, just another reason to come back.

Rome, Italy

Rome. This is Santa Maria del Popolo Square.


Come on! (outside the collisium, duh)

Inside.

St. Peters Square.

Trevi fountain.

Whoa, Rome was BIG. It was a lot to take in too, especially after the tranquilty of Positano. We adjusted but it took a few days. It was amazing seeing things that we had only heard of for most of our lives. The center of the Roman Empire! Endless monuments, fountains, oblisks (all stolen from Egypt) and crumbling remains of the might that was. It was overwelming at times to be somewhere where everytime you turned around you were faced with yet another treasure, be it ancient or modern.

Positano, Italy

Ah, Positano. We love you.

A view from our wonderful hostel, Brikette. I´ll take it.

A rough afternoon. We managed though, don´t worry.


Mmmmm...
"Do we have to leave?"

Positano was incredibly beautiful and a highlight of Italy. We stayed in a great hostel high up in the cliffs above most of the town with an incredible view by both day and night. Above you can see some examples by day but by night the moon rose over the bay and lit everything up as far as one could see. And we were lucky to be there during a full moon. We also took a long hike along the cliffs on "the path of the gods". It will go down as one of our favorite walks ever - even though Brian twisted his ankle in the beginning of it. We plan on coming back for sure but alas, more of Italy awaits.

Pompeii, Sorrento, Capi, Italy!

This is how the cave really looks. it glows! (in Capri, Italy)

A view from Sorrento to the bay.

Brian in old Pompeii.

In a theater in Pompeii.

Ashlei in a Pompeii temple.


Well, goodbye Greece and hello Italy. There had been plenty still to see in Greece but we were ready to leave and have a change. Italy provided that for us. We flew in to Naples and headed straight for Sorrento on the eastern coast where we spent a few nights, allowing us to explore the nearby island of Capri (with the blue grotto - the glowing cave that you see above) as well as the disaster of Pompeii. If you don´t know what Pompeii is, it´s a city that in midday was covered in the volcanic ash of Mt. Vesuvius, their neighborhood volcano. We´ve been around them lately huh? Well, their aftermath seems to make great places to visit. Anyhow Pompeii was covered and BOOM! just like that the city was gone and so were all of its inhabitants. When archeologists excavated it they found an incredibly intact city that was put to sleep forever in mid-sentance. It was an amazing place to behold, and again a reminder as to how temporal much is.

Athens, Greece

wow! all this stuff is real! (The Acropolis, that is)


look how happy i am to be here.

ashlei atop the acropolis, scheming something...

Broken buildings are beautiful.

The highlight of Athen´s sights: The Temple of Olympian Zeus.

Athens. Sparta. The two most powerful cities of ancient Greece. Athens know for brain, Sparta known for braun. Athens - alive and well today. Sparta? uh, not really on the map much is it. Let´s let history answer the question as to whether "might means right" .