Mom & Dad in München

Hello! It has been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve written, but I am going to ignore that fact and pretend like I’m all caught up.

After a wonderful trip home in April, Mom & Dad came over to this side of the ocean for a couple of weeks in May. The weather was a bit iffy, but we had a great time! Here they are, sleepily coming through customs:

We had a few days, power walking through Munich – both to stave off jet lag, and to stay warm!

Mom & Dad surrounded by a bike tour in front of the Hofbräuhaus

Here S, Dad, and I celebrate our finds at the Haidhausen Hofflohmarkt with Bier/Pop and a pretzel at a biergarten. Instead of garage sales, neighborhoods have a once a year day where everyone opens up their courtyards and unloads all of their unwanted items. We got a nice wooden (hmmm…. not sure of the word. Little a-frame structure with dangly things that you plop over a baby) and a wooden block set.

Mom and Dad also had the good timing to be here when Bayern München won the German Championship. There was a huge rally on Marienplatz & free beer in the Viktualienmarkt.

View of the rally from the top of Alter Peter

After a few days in Munich, we took the train south and spent a few days in Italy. First stop was Verona. Verona is very old – many Roman bits and pieces still remain, including one of the most complete Roman Coliseums.

Hanging over this walkway is a whale rib. It has been there for 500 years and will supposedly fall when a truly just man walks under it. You can see S looking hopefully up, but nope. Still there.

From Verona, we went to Padua, or Padova as it is known in Italy. Padova was a really interesting city and I’d like to go back. One of the largest and best universities in Italy is there and it is also home to St. Anthony. So, between the pilgrims and all of the students, it feels like a real, living city and not so dependent on us tourists.

We used Padova as a base camp to make the short train trip into Venice. The day started out cold and rainy, but by the afternoon it was sunny and hot.

Here are Mom & Dad in front of St. Mark’s. The floor of St. Mark’s was one of the more amazing things I have ever seen. I think I could have stayed in there all day staring at it.

The Grand Canal. We splurged a bit and bought day passes for the Vaporetto. Pregnant ol’ me just couldn’t take another whole day of walking. We took the boat down the Grand Canal, but stayed on past St. Mark’s and enjoyed a ride through the lagoon to some of the less frequented, and more actual-life feeling, areas of Venice. Venice is gorgeous, but so crowded. I’d like to go again sometime when it is a little more off-season. I’m so glad we got in one last trip before our family of 2 becomes 3!

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