Slowing down in Italy!

After the fast pace of our travels in France and Germany we planned to take on the Italian lifestyle, slow and easy. Madeleine and Daniel were not too keen on the concept of a midday siesta but we soon found out that not much else happens in the middle of the day here in rural Italy; the shops are almost all closed between 1 and 4pm and the streets of little towns such as Todi are almost deserted (except for the tourists).

Tuesday arrives with us relaxing over a bowl of cereal on the upper deck looking out over the beautiful countryside.

Breakfast before the sun gets too hot.

The view from the bedroom upstairs

The same bedroom but a different view.

Our car outside the villa in Todi.

The villa was a very comfortable base for us all. If we closed all the windows and shutters by around 10am the inside of the old stone house stayed cool. Of course the pool also provided welcome relief from the heat of the day. Dad enjoyed playing the grand piano in the downstairs room and relaxed whilst listening to some of the owner's classical music collection.

Relaxing on the lawn.

We looked forward to exploring the local area a little more....... a visit to Orvieto was next on the list.....

  

Todi and beyond

Todi is in the heart of a farming community in Umbria. At this time of year the fields ("paddocks" to us) are full of sunflowers (girasole). Some farmers are still harvesting wheat. We passed many fields with sunflower plants that were close to opening their sunny faces.
We settled into the house and worked out where the best places were to buy fresh local food.
Marsciano.......

.......has a weekly market on Monday mornings so off we went. It was hot and very busy with locals doing their weekly shopping just like us. The food is very fresh and colourful.

Fresh fruit!!!!

Madeleine and Daniel quickly learnt that Italians love children! There is a lot of cheek pinching (not so enjoyable!!) but also when we buy something the busy stall holders almost always hand over a piece of their best and tastiest fruit to each child for free.
At the market we had a bite to eat in a cafe and then managed to find some sunglasses for Daniel and headbands for Madeleine. We also bought some fruit and vegetables and a little ham and local cheese (pecorino) for the days ahead.
On our way back to the house we stopped and enjoyed some shopping at a clothing outlet, by which time we were all hot enough for a swim.

Cooling off!!

Italy!!

We flew in to Rome bright and early. As we were landing at Fiumicino we could see crowds of people already on the beach at 8 o'clock in the morning! After collecting our bags we waited for the car person to collect us and drive us to the parking lot where we were picking up our hire car. The traffic outside the airport was heavy. There was a long line of cars taking scores of Romans to the beach. The traffic was barely moving as the cars crawled "al mare". Luckily our driver knew an alternative route.
Once we were in the car it was straight onto the autostrada to head north to Todi....they drive very fast here....we were there before we knew it. Our house was a few minutes drive out of town so once we unpacked the car we headed out to explore.

Todi house.

View of Todi from house.

Getting to know Berlin

Our first morning in Berlin began with fresh croissants! Dad went out to a bakery just around the corner where they specialised in French style bread and pastries. 

He was due in a meeting at the conference in the afternoon. We decided to explore the local area with him in the morning  and ended up at the huge Ka De We department store (Kaufhaus des Westens). The food hall was magnificent and we easily found something to have for lunch. 

The Ka De We restaurant

We spent quite a bit of time looking at all the toys and clothes. They have everything you could think of.
We were then able to get our bearings, and plan the rest of our stay.
Dad went off to work...

This is the hotel where Dad's conference was held

......and we grocery shopped so we could eat our favourite homemade veggie burgers for dinner.
The next morning we went with Mum and bought special train tickets to get us easily around town on trains, buses or the trams. From the station we caught our first Berlin bus....

The bus we took to the zoo.

......to take us to the Berlin Zoological Garden.

Daniel and Madeleine at the elephant gate.

There we waited in one of the longest queues we had been in or ever seen! It was worth it because it was "fanfairytasmagorical"! All the animals were very clean, healthy and happy. We walked for hours seeing all the beautiful enclosures of the animals and ended up very hot!!

Madeleine and Daniel in the Walrus Ship.

The Walrus ship.

Saying hello to a seal.

 We learned that Dad had met up with Mia and Edy's Dad, Pete. He travelled all the way from Geelong to be at the conference. We walked over the padlock bridge again and had another great dinner together at the Cafe Am Neuen See.

Dinner with Pete at the Cafe in the Tiergarten.

The next day Dad went to the conference in the morning but decided to take the afternoon off to see a bit of Berlin with us. He had contacted his friend Bini and arranged to meet in Potsdam. Bini now runs dance classes there and lives nearby with her husband Stephan and 2 children; Stella and Selma. We went on a fabulous boat ride to see the sights and then had great fun in a playground. Bini had prepared fruity treats for us all and Stephan was amazing as a local tour guide. The boat had a special feature that allowed it to pass under the low bridges. As you can see from the photographs the roof of the cockpit went up and down to allow the boat to pass underneath even the lowest bridge. At one point the roof was lowered so far that the captain's head poked through a hole ..... it was the only way he could see where he was going!

Can you see the roof of the cockpit going up?

Going under the bridge.

2 families on a boat.

Bini and Stephan and a fruity feast.....

....but all the chocolates have disappeared!

It was a big boat.

I wonder what would happen if I ring this bell?

A lovely day on the lake at Potsdam

The following day we went on another Berlin Bus to see the Brandenburg Gates and Checkpoint Charlie. We saw a lot of bears and encountered the famous East German green man.

What is Mickey Mouse doing here?

The Green man from the pedestrian traffic lights in the old East Germany.

Another Berlin Bear....

And so ended our time in Berlin and Germany..... next stop Italy......

Frankfurt to Berlin

Sadly our time in Bad Homburg had come to an end and it was time to catch the train to Berlin. It was not a final goodbye for Alice, Benedetta and Torsten however as we will meet again in Tuscany in a few weeks time. We did not see Alice as she had to get up early to get to school and Torsten needed to go to work. After breakfast we packed up our things and waited for Benedetta to take us to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

Dad had booked 4 tickets on the ICE train to Berlin and we looked forward to another comfortable journey. This time we had 4 seats around a table. The railway lines to Berlin have been damaged by recent flooding and the trip was scheduled to be a little longer as a result.

Benedetta waited for our train to leave to make sure all was well.

Benedetta took us to Frankfurt Hbf to catch the ICE train

Waiting for the train to Berlin

The train travelled a little slower than usual due to the damage to the tracks but our patience in DeutscheBahn was really tested when the announcement came through that our journey would stop at Berlin-Lichtenberg instead of the central station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof. This was  a suburban station nowhere near our final destination and so we needed to quickly work out the best way to go forward. Ultimately we boarded the local S-bahn train with all our luggage and then took a taxi from the Zoologischer Garten station to our apartment. This was quite a journey in the end but despite the rain we arrived safely without getting too wet. Our apartment was very close to Dad's conference venue at the Hotel  Intercontinental... but it was also close to the Berlin Zoo.... and a lovely restaurant in the gardens called the Cafe Am Neuen See. We walked in the gentle rain over another "padlock bridge", passing by some animals in the zoo to this very atmospheric cafe overlooking a little lake in Berlin's  Tiergarten.

Over another padlock bridge.

Biergarten at the Cafe Am Neuen See

Writing postcards at the Cafe.

Can you see an ostrich and her baby?

Here they are....

Dad needed to work for a few days here in Berlin attending the MASCC conference. It was only scheduled to run for 3 days and so he would be back in holiday-mode before too long...

A visit to Hessenpark

Although it is very difficult to take a day off from school in Germany, Alice was able to spend the Monday with us! The two Dads were at work so the two Mums took us to see Alice's school and then on to an historical town called Hessenpark - Madeleine says, "It's just like the Jindera Museum but bigger."

Morningtea fresh from the Hessenpark Bakery

The weather was once again nothing like our summers! One minute we were warm, the next cold and the next wet!! Even though it rained it didn't dampen our fun.
The park is an open-air museum demonstrating the way life was for people over the last 400 years.
We were able to walk in and around homes with pretty gardens.....

A vegetable patch - they gather the vegetables to eat but also harvest flowers and mud to use  in their dying workshop

Church with a cemetery

....a few different Churches, one which had a cemetery in the garden, a Postoffice with a collection of old telephones (Mum and Benedetta needed to teach us how to use them!), a windmill, a workshop of a stonemason,

...a beautiful old barn which housed a weaver who was actually using two of the looms that are kept there......

Here the weaver is repairing a broken thread

This loom is being used to make a scarf - they sell all the items they make 

The lady is weaving a length of fabric

.....and a man who was using flowers and a mud/wax mix to dye fabric a beautiful blue colour.
There was a schoolroom,

Our classrooms don't look like this!

and a number of sheds keeping old re-claimed timbers, window frames and slabs of stone out of the weather. They use all these to rebuild and renovate.

Feeding baby brown lambs.

After walking around the museum for most of the day we headed back to Alice's house and played with her wombats.

Tomorrow we travel to Berlin on yet another train!