Italy Prelude

 As the 50th wedding anniversary approached for Linda and me, we had discussions for a trip to commemorate this milestone in our marriage.  We decided that the best way to celebrate this occasion would be to share it with our children (Courtney and Beth) and two of our grandchildren (Riley and Ethan).  

I do believe that travel  is a great way to learn, especially international travel.  I was exposed to another culture at a young age when I the U.S. Army sent me to Vietnam.  This was definately a learning experience.  I had the great fortune to meet and marry Linda Hicks and she has the same interest in travel that I do,  During our married life we have had the opportunity to travel outside the United States on numerous occasions.  In addition to most of the European Union counttries, we have traveled to Russia, China and Vietnam.  

We hope our grandchildren, as they get older, enjoy traveling as much as we do.  The kids had been studying Roman history in the 9th grade and we felt a trip to Italy would be in order.

We are in Rome now.  The trip over was uneventful and very plesant.  Our driver , his name was Edward, was waiting for us at the airport and provided out transportation to home during our stay in Rome. Edward apologized because his English was not so good.  I told Edward his English was a lot better than my Italian.  Our hostess is a very nice lady named Giulia .

We had luch (pizza), found an ATM, located the nearest Marta station, and went grocery shopping.

Tomorrow we will tour the Vatican.  The weather is great, we just hope it stays this way,


March 9, 1974..... Linda and Jerry Hatfield


Roman pizza, one of the major food groups in Italy






Our ride.  Riley's first airplane ride

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Orvieto 03/29/2024

Image
 Today marks our final day in Italy.  We will visit Orvieto.  This is the last item on our planned itinerary.  Linda and I visited Orvieto a number of years ago and we thought the kids would enjoy seeing a medieval city. Like every other place in Italy, the Etruscans were there first.  This ancient city was a major centre of the Etruscan civilization.  Rome annexed Orvieto in the 3rd century BC.  The city is located on top of a plateau, overlooking the surrounding valley.   The elevation is 650' above the valley.  It was considered an impregnable location and it controlled the road from Florence to Rome.  The population in the 13th century was 30,000.  Today it is 20,000.  The city was built on a flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff  (75% volcanic ash and 25% rock).  This is basically two cities, the above ground and the underground. Although the city was considered impregnable, caution was the watchword...
Read more