When one door closes...

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
~Alexander Graham Bell

The last destination for our vacation 2014 was Assisi, Italy, a small hillside town on the flank of Mount Subasio in the Perugia region. We were excited to go see the birthplace of St. Francis, where he ultimately founded the Franciscan religious order. We were nervous, however, to take the trains there from Rome, given the rumored disorder of Rome's train stations and unpredictability of the service. That, and we didn't speak a lick of Italian.

Well, we happened to get there in plenty of time, got our tickets without a hitch, and found the electronic board. We were pretty amazed at what we saw. Expected arrival to Assisi? 

10:10. That's God's time. 

God's time. Hands at 10 minutes after 10.

We were really excited that we had picked the right day (and time) to see St. Francis' spiritual home. Since we only had a day there, we kind of rushed around to make sure we saw all the churches and important places to see in Assisi. It was hot but rewarding.

St. Francis statue in the Cathedrale of San Rufino. It was the main church in Assisi for many years, and St. Francis was baptized here.

There are many churches in this small town, and we did our best to see as many of them as possible while learning their connections to St. Francis. I'm sorry I didn't write it all down when I was there, but here's a sampling:

This is the Cathedrale of San Rufino.

Temple of Minerva in the main square in Assisi. The temple was built in the 1st century, and a church was later built within, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in 1539.

This was the view from the town.

We saw a few other churches but we were excited to make our way down to the Basilica of St. Francis. It felt kind of like a pilgrimage, for some reason.

As we got closer, our hearts raced and this is what we saw:

We got there in time for noon mass. We didn't even know what time it was before then. We completely felt as if we were being welcomed to St. Francis' home.

A beautiful picture of the Basilica of St. Francis.

We went into the church, and made our way downstairs into the old, original chapel. We sat for a special service, in Latin, in a really beautiful old space. It felt much more inviting than expected. We wandered around a little, and went into the Basilica's museum to browse and continue to learn about Catholicism, the Franciscan order, and St. Francis. There were friars everywhere, in slightly different colored robes - we did not know robes were different colors depending on the country of origin.

This is looking along the bottom aspect of the basilica...that's John, Kenzie and Griff at the
bottom right of the picture.

We were approaching the end of our magical vacation, and I was a little wistful as we were walking around the village. So much to see in this world, but so little time. At that moment, I started noticing them. Doors. 

Unique, stately, quiet doors were everywhere. Little ones. Big ones. Fancy ones. Simple ones. 

Alexander Graham Bell's quote came to me as doors seemed to pop out from every single building, and I realized that this journey was not coming to an end...it was really just the beginning. Someday soon new doors would open and I just had to keep my mind open to the possibilities ahead.

Oh Rome-e-o

We were not ready to say goodbye to Liz or to Basel, but we were kind of excited to cram back into our tiny car and have Lola guide us to Milan. The kids were excited we had our Voyager Air 2 (more about this in a future post), but I was excited about the prospect of seeing beautiful mountains as we passed through the Swiss and then Italian Alps.

Not exactly.

You can tell we would have been in for some spectacular scenery had the clouds decided to play in, let's say, Croatia, this week. <<sigh>>

We had a fairly uneventful but slightly soggy drive to Milan, where we going to spend the night in our Italian "cousin's" apartment en route to Rome. The drive southward from Basel got faster and faster as we got further into Italy. It was way more stressful than we realized, and we did nothing but walk around the block to eat and then chilled out in Fab's Milan abode once we arrived.

Pretty apartment building across from our restaurant.

Fabrizio's apartment. Total black and white glam. Look at the butt chairs.

We rested up and mentally prepared ourselves for the drive in Milan rush hour traffic on the way to the craziness of Rome. Thankfully Fab had a nice Nespresso machine and we could caffeinate in style.

The drive to Rome was speedy but we found our way (finally) to the car rental place and then by taxi to our apartment for the next few days of our journey. We were met by the manager and led through several ally-ways into our apartment complex. Talk about stressful! People everywhere! Dark places! Would we make it out alive?!

Why yes. Yes, we would...

It was absolutely ADORABLE. HomeAway, you never do me wrong. :)

I had had pretty terrible preconceived notions about Rome. I don't usually do cities well, preferring the outdoors and time away from throngs of people whenever possible. Rome is so far away from that concept I was sure I would hate it. But I didn't. I loved it! The passion for life was everywhere, the excitement, the energy, the history. It was magical from the time we awakened each morning until we rested our weary heads each night.

The Pantheon

Ruins near our apartment. Cats are everywhere (except visible here).

Beautiful ceiling in the Vatican Museum.

The Swiss Guard outside St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Fashion Week, here they come.

St. Peter's Square - obviously no mass today. What an incredible feeling to be here!

The Colosseum

The Colosseum from the inside - you have to read about the history of this place...

The Forum

We truly had a fascinating (but really HOT) time in Rome, and I didn't even mention the churches. I don't think my kids will ever do cathedral sightseeing ever again! However, they loved the people-watching, the crazy drivers, and the gelato.

We sampled several gelatos in Rome (which was molto better than in Paris, sorry) but this was always the busiest and had awesome flavors. Gelato battles are a big deal in this city! Everyone has a passionate opinion about their fave.

The night before we left we ventured across the Tiber River into Trastevere, a hip district of Rome with fewer camera-toting tourists and a cooler vibe. We had a great time eating and walking around. We came home by way of the water front, which was lined with temporary cafes, bars and shops. It was well past 10 pm when we walked by, and it looked as if the scene was just getting started.

We did have a side trip into Assisi, which I'll post about next, but this night was a great end to a greater vacation. The journey was, like life itself, challenging to plan and put together, but in the end, it's the combination of hard work, patience, chaos, being open to stuff you didn't even plan, and a little luck that makes it all worth while.

Wonderful Friends and Wickelfisch

Leaving Annecy was sad, but we were excited to head to Switzerland! The day of departure was a tad rainy and blah, perfect weather to be in a tiny car crammed with four people and all our stuff. Thank God for Lola, our GPS, and her ability to speak English. Note for the el-cheapos among you when you drive in Europe: splurge for the GPS.

It was a pretty trip to Basel, Switzerland from Annecy, France with Lakes Geneva, Neuchatel, Biel and Murten en route. We were a bit stressed out going through customs, since we needed Swiss Francs and did not have them; however, the screaming American with his broken-down car distracted the customs agent and he charged us the equivalent in Euro and sent us on our way.

The signage changed gradually at the border from French to Swiss German, and we had to laugh at the exit signs:

Who doesn't love a little toilet talk after a stressful day in a teeny car?

We arrived in Basel greeted with warm hugs from our wonderful friend and had unbelievable accommodations for the next 4 days. My two kids loved Basel the best of all our stops. The city itself was beautiful - clean, efficient, and generally just cool.

Did I mention old? We did the usual touristy thing and walked around the city to get a feel for the city and just absorb the ambiance. The buildings above are examples of what you can find all over Basel, many proudly displaying their ages as shown in the photo above. 1291 AD! Wow!

We were really jonesin' for hiking and zip-lining in the Swiss Alps, but alas the weather did not cooperate. Instead, we opted (settled) for a trip up a cog-wheel railway out of Alpnachstad up Pilatus Kulm...the world's steepest cog-wheel railway, with a 48% incline. You can read about it here. It was very cool, even if the top looked like a blizzard with all the fog. 

No pictures from the top - it looked like the inside of a cottonball, so I will spare you the photo. However, we enjoyed each other's company while we walked around and relished a delish Swiss latte coffee in the lodge near the peak. The trip down was far scarier than on the way up, and I still marvel at the alpine bovines and their ability to stand straight in such conditions.

The rest of our Basel stay included a trip to their adorable zoo:

Who doesn't love baby hippos?!?!

 

A visit to the Basel Munster (Cathedral) is a must, with the claustrophobic stair climb to the top for the requisite photo op.

But the best part of the trip, other than the company, was DEFINITELY the Rheinschwimmen (Rhine Swim). This is when you use your wickelfisch (dry bag) to protect your belongings while you swim/float down the river to another part of town. It is an actual method of commuting, which for obvious reasons works only one way.

After putzing about Basel for the morning, we set off for Museum Tinguely on the Klein Basel side of the Rhein. It was a long-ish walk on a hot day, but the bizarre and intriguing Tinguely made that worth the work.

When we had our fill of the sculptures and mixed media works of Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, we exited the museum out the back, went to the riverbank, stripped to our suits, stuffed our stuff in our wickelfisch, and hopped in the chilly Rhein for a trip downriver. Check out our GoPro video for yourself (just the end shown):

It took about 20 minutes to float 20 blocks - wayyyy less time than the trip 20 blocks upriver on foot. And a whole lot cooler, in more ways than one!

We loved Basel, and loved our friend Liz for treating us like family. We can't wait to go back again! In fact, we just might have to, to pay that speeding ticket...