Mason is finishing up his semester in Barcelona, Spain. We thought it would be great time for a family vacation to join him in Europe and celebrate the end of his program abroad.

We decided together that we would visit Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria. We will have a focus on WWII history and visiting important places from the Holocaust. In addition, the kids wanted to spend some time in Poland….visiting “the mother-land” (whatever that means…). Finally, we decided some plain old fun would be important so that will be the focus over Christmas. We plan to ski in the Alps. We will be renting 2 cars & simply driving from place to place over the course of 2 weeks. We have our AirBnbs reserved. This trip overseas will be more planned than Steve & my last backpacking adventure. Life needs to be a bit more planned with 4 kids traveling along with us 🙂
So, the Griswalds, I mean the Malikowskis are headed to Europe December 15-29. Step one; boarding the plane for departure, is currently contingent upon both Steve & Staci getting renewed passports!!! Currently in progress….
Stay tuned & read along. And if you haven’t read our first trip blog, scroll all the way to the bottom & join our earlier adventure. Looking forward to blogging again 🙂

June 8 – Arrivederci!
We’ve had a wonderful time in Italy. We’ve decided to return home today. We had thought we would travel for 3 weeks, but that’s quite a long time. We miss the kids & have worn ourselves out as European backpackers! It really is quite exhausting! We’ve enjoyed so many places while here and we are so excited to return someday. Hope you’ve enjoyed following us. Until later, goodbye friends!

June 9th
Still trying to get home 🙂 Connection problems left us stranded in Amsterdam. No. No crazy Amsterdam activities to report from these old people….

Ciao!

Life is complete, I’ve seen Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement with my own eyes! It was quite a raucous to get there & it was probably the worst experience with overcrowded tourist craziness. But it was absolutely worth every painful second. The Sistine Chapel really surprised me, I was expecting a large church, but that’s not the case at all, it’s actually quite small….stunning, beautiful, amazing place. I’m so glad we came back to see it. I wish we had more time to spend in the museums, but we’ll know better next time & do a better job of allowing more time.
Hoping to share some pictures with you tomorrow!

We spent the day traveling back to Rome. We were glad to have the train as our means of travel back to Rome instead of the bus. We were happy to have tried bus transportation because it’s so common in Italy, but we can check that off the bucket list (wasn’t actually on there). I’m really happy we decided to return to Rome, not just to see the Sistine Chapel, but also because the city has been much more enjoyable the second time. We had our bearings upon arrival and didn’t feel that overwhelming “big city” shock that we had the first time. We visited the Trevi Fountain and tossed in our coins. This act ensures travelers will return to Rome. The original custom was to drink from the fountain, but it’s now heavily treated with chlorine, so the tradition has changed to tossing coins. Steve even tossed one, so I guess we both want to return to Rome someday!

We’ve tried our best to eat like Italians while here. Steve only broke down one day & ordered an American omelet for breakfast and I did equally well with only ordering “Cafe Americano” (black coffee) one time. Otherwise, we’ve embraced their ways & now I’m terrified to see what the scale says!!! They don’t have scales in their hotel rooms, that would obviously hurt the dining/gelato business!! We’ve eaten pasta and pastries every day and gelato nearly every day. We’ve shifted our dining schedule to match the European schedule of eating at 9pm. We’ve even been able to order a pasta dish for an appetizer & then a meal to follow. It really is like eating two full meals in one sitting. It’s pretty remarkable that people can do it all the time…it left me feeling terrible all three times I tried it. We’ve also embraced their love of vino!

I left Steve in the hotel for a siesta & man did I shop!! There’s so much here that needs to come home with me!
Not sure how I’m going to get all this in my bag. Steve’s bag will have to help 🙂

With the political issues & demonstrations in Turkey, we’ve decided to stick to Italy. Why leave such a beautiful place anyway?!?! And it’s a good thing we didn’t make a bunch of reservations because here’s what we’re looking at now!

We had the most wonderful day in Amalfi. We found another hiking trail & it led us to the most incredible place! I felt like few people had walked where we were. We really have figured out what we like best, and it’s hiking.

AND I GOT TO SHOP!! Nothing too fabulous, but we picked up some souvenirs for the kids & a couple of things for us too.

The Amafi Coast is an area that is ridiculous, but in a great way!!! The beauty is indescribable. We took a bus from Praiano to Amalfi today & it was quite an experience to be on a one-lane road, in a bus..on a cliff, meeting another bus on the same one-lane road…same cliff. And somehow they make it work. Some buses have to back up while others wait…its almost like another “horn” language. And the whole time scooters are zipping through. They really do honk at each other & seem to understand what the other is honking about. Their driving skills are remarkable!

Amalfi is peaceful and beautiful and we must return someday. We both agreed, this will not be our only trip to Italy!

What to say about Rome? We did the typical day at the Vatican, except we had purchased tickets a few months ago (thanks for the recommendation Bill & Jill!) for the Scavi tour. Google it! This tour was the most amazing experience. Our guide was a seminary student in his second year of his doctorate and he was remarkable. The Scavi tour is a tour under St. Peter’s basilica. We were walking the same path as St. Peter and actually saw his remains. We both agreed that as a life experience, this was one of the most spiritual and fulfilling moments. Praying next to his grave is impossible to describe. You really must experience it. Unfortunately our tour ran long & we were unable to get to the Sistine Chapel before closing time & I cried (literally)….So we agreed to go back later this week.

Rome has many pros & cons. First, the pros…history and character in the architecture is stunning. It’s impossible for an American to comprehend a building built in 68aD. We went to the Colosseum and I never knew it was originally a building of complete marble that was later looted. I always thought it was made of brick. To imagine that space of complete marble is unbelievable. A building built in 68aD that holds 65,000 and it only took them 8 years to build it…awestruck was how Steve described it.

The pope was blessing the people on Wednesday morning, but we chose not to become 2 people in a crowd of 100,000 in Vatican City. Perhaps we will regret the decision later in life, but a crowd of that size in an unfamiliar place was too much for us.
We felt those were the highlights of our 2 days in Rome. Plus we did laundry.
Now, the cons….dirty. Very dirty. And touristy, over the top. A lot of poverty & beggars at every corner. I went for my morning run & didn’t feel safe alone. But even with those few cons, we do say you really should go! Your experience can be as positive as you make it, just don’t focus on the bad stuff!

We’re both starting to think about cutting the trip shorter than planned. Three weeks is feeling too much right now. We’ve just arrived in Rome & have learned that there are some travel safety warnings in Istanbul(our planned return flight home on June 14). We will see how a couple of days in Rome feels and then decide whether to keep going to southern Italy or maybe Greece, or if we just want to come home. We really do miss the three babies!! Traveling without itinerary does have some good benefits.

PS…ticket checker guy never came around on the train. Steve is relaxing comfortably in our hotel room 🙂

June 3rd
Another morning run today, it was perfect weather this morning. We packed up to leave the vineyard & spent a few hours walking around Siena. It’s a beautiful town. We (or at least me) wished we had more time to see the church but couldn’t fit it in since the train to Rome will take about 4 hours this afternoon/evening. We bought our tickets for €33 and will arrive in Rome tonight at about 7pm. I have a bit of a concern that we may have only purchased one ticket for this journey but I’m not certain….I’m certain the ticket guy will let us know. I can guarantee you that I won’t be the one leaving the train!

I’ve decided that I must do some shopping…I did add a purse yesterday! It’s physically painful to walk by all of these beautiful shoes & handbags knowing that I cannot buy anything because we have NO room in our backpacks. I think I’ve convinced Steve that we should find a post office & ship home a bunch of our things so that we have room for more goods. We will see if that idea comes to fruition. We must also find a laundry in Rome. It is time or we’ll need to purchase new backpacks for the nice friends who loaned us theirs!

June 2nd
Got to start the day with a 4 mile run in the most beautiful place. It’s so rural and peaceful here. It feels much like areas up north in Minnesota. The view though is something like we do not get to see in Minnesota. We spent today driving through the Chanti region of Siena. The roads were incredibly windy and narrow. In each of the villages I’ve noticed how much the Italians love their flowers. There are a lot of rose bushes & most every balcony and terrace is completely decked out in Geraniums, mostly red in terra cotta pots. We went to 4 small towns. One of them was having a street fair…and all the booths were wine!! I’m not a fan of street fairs but let me tell you, this was a great one! I participated (you could buy a glass for €10 (about $13)) and stop at every booth to try their wine. Steve was driving, so he couldn’t participate. This also shortened my length of participation, but it was very fun nonetheless. We also found a couple of paintings that we bought to bring home. One is of Florence, the other is of Siena. They roll up nicely to fit in our backpack. We returned to the vineyard to relax at the pool and get some sunshine. We were not really prepared to cook for ourselves (why should that change just because we’re on vacation???) and we were too lazy to drive back to town for dinner, so we ate the rest of our tomatoes, cheese & bread & watched a couple of movies on the iPad. Nice & relaxing.

Having trouble uploading photos. I’ll update if I’m able to get some off the camera.