Interlaken, Home of Extream Sports and Amazng Scenery

We spent 3 days in Interlaken and made sure to use our time as best we could. I know we briefly mentioned what we did but here are the pictures that make everything so much more real. Day one we checked in and went paragliding. It was well worth the money (a lot) and it was good for me because I was terrified of the idea but it was so peaceful and beautiful and surprisingly not scary. It'll still take me a while to warm up to the idea of skydiving but I'd say this is a good start!

Day two we got as close to the "World's Highest Train Station" as we could afford. We got one stop away before prices skyrocketed. We hiked our way down the mountain until we reached a village connected with the train, probably about 5 hours. I totally felt like running and singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." with my arms stretched out. Oh wait, I probably did do that! We saw a ton of avalanches too. They sounded like thunder.

Day three we took a train to Grindlewald and planned on a 4 hour hike that was kind of a loop. However, our map was not one that accurately showed elevation gain so after hiking up an insane mountain side for an hour and a half we gave up, collapsed and walked back down never really getting anywhere except halfway up a mountain. Oh well, it was beautiful and it felt so good to be outside enjoying as much of the alps as we could handle. Still, a three hour hike....not too bad.


Suited up, at our take-off location and totally ready to fly!


Action shot. See my instructor behind me trying to get in the picture!


Here's David's action shot. His instructor caught a "thermal" (hot air) and so they were above us.


Here we are, again fascinated by farm animals. Up until this point neither of us realized we had never seen a real life pig before. I vaguely remember seeing baby pigs some where when I was tiny but this is totally different. We just wanted to post it because it makes us laugh. It is just the ugliest thing we have ever seen! And I thought donkeys were ugly!


The mountains and valleys of the alps.


Totally "Sound of Music" worthy. If you look closly, in the upper left corner you can see the highest train station. It is just to the left of the big mountain in the center. That mountain, by the way is Jungfrau (meaning Virgin).


Here is one of our many avalanche shots. This does not do justice.

A Stop In Milan And Then Into Switzerland!

We were literally in Milan for only 24 hours but we loved it. I was such a refreshing break from the madness of Italy and tourists, most of whom don't make it that far north. One thing we noticed about all the cities we visited was that they all had a "Duomo". We had no clue what that meant before but now we couldn't be more sure. Thankfully Switzerland is Duomo free. Oh and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it is basically a big famous church with an impressive dome - or something like that. Anyways, Milan's duomo was our favorite. We checked that out and then went shopping at our very first H&M Store. For those of you not in the know, H&M is a famous European clothing store that has really trendy and inexpensive clothes and there are only like 3 of these store in the States. So anyways, we updated our wardrobe a tad (I mean we were in Milan...what else were we supposed to do?).

We spent one night and in the morning we headed to Lucerne, Switzerland. So far, if we decided to live anywhere else, it would be Lucerne. It is definitely a city but small so there's close community and it is surrounded by lakes, the alps and real villages with cows that wear bells and farmers dressed in traditional outfits playing the accordion on the front porch. No joke, it truly is amazing! We were there from Oct. 12th - 15th.



The Duomo in Milan.


The most famous postcard shot of Lucerne with the Chapel Bridge behind us.


On the ferry and headed to Mount Rigi for a day of exploring. It was really foggy that day but on top of the mountain it was blue skies and you couldn't see anything below you except white fluff. It was really neat.


Mountain goats on Mount Rigi. Some had huge horns. It was the farm animals that made us realize what city kids we were. Every shaggy cow, goat, pig, sheep, whatever that we came across we would just take a ton of pictures and get all into it. The bells around their necks sound so beautiful and while you hike there is a consistent chime somewhere in the distance.


Standing at the highest peak on Mount Pilatus. They say you can see Austria and France from up here but to be honest, we really didn't know what to look for so we just assume we saw it!


About halfway down Mount Pilatus was a ropes-course and this crazy odd metal toboggan slide that was really long. I was a nervous wreck going down it. Not really my thing.

Our Love, Cinque Terre, Italy

We only spent 3 days exploring the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre but we absolutely loved every minute of it. We were there Oct. 6th - 8th and it was our last warm destination. This was our vacation from museums and old churches. We spent the full first day hiking the 11 km. between the villages taking a million pictures unable to fully grasp the beauty surrounding us and sadly, our pictures don't do it justice in most cases. The next 2 days were spent on the beaches. We stayed in a really great place that had a book exchange (we got "The Hobbit") an awesome kitchen and our own room. Plus it was right on the water.



Our fantastic breakfast, probably the best we had eaten in a long time. David bought a juicer in Pisa at a dollar store so we had fresh OJ to boot!


View of Riomaggiore, the most southern of the five villages and where we stayed.


David taking the plunge! After David jumped, the guy up there with him chickened out and climbed down.


The "hike" was a lot more mellow then we expected but it was still gorgeous. This is David and Megan as we descend to the final town, Moterosso (the spelling is probably wrong).


We actually bought this picture...on a postcard after seeing this.


Posing on the hike even though we are all sweaty since we did the hike mid-day.


Once we got to Monterosso, we sat down outside for dinner and right when out food came out, the clouds rolled in and a crazy thunder and lightening storm hit. It got really windy and tree pits were flying into our wine but remember we were still hot and sweaty so we really didn't care. It was really exciting to enjoy muscles and swordfish for the first time with a new friend in the middle of a storm. I mean really, why not?

Florence, Pisa and Venice Photos

Florence was great because our friend Megan kind of acted a a tour guide so we got to learn a ton and have company. Lots of Romanian Gypsies there though. Pisa was cool for a couple hours laying in the grass for a couple hours but no more. Venice was beautiful and we took a ton of pictures but they all look the same so we only posted a couple.



The famous "David" in the Academia Museum in Florence. It was really expensive to get in and there were only 4 other statues there. It was worth it though - a must see. He was HUGE in real life. The people here were really strict with picture taking also. Lame.


A typical Venice "street".


This picture has a story behind it. Several years ago at the Edmonds Arts Festival David and I visted a photographers booth and this picture was on sale. David didn't want to buy it, he wanted to DRAW it. In our bedroom hangs David's drawing of this exact same shot except the red building on the right is freshly painted. We walked over this bridge and we both instantly knew what we were looking at. It was really crazy feeling.


Me, David and Megan were imitating all the international tourists "We Love Pisa!" See the people in the background contorting their bodies to obtain the most creative "holding up the tower" pose!


We all agree that David wins for most creative use of a useless building.

Rome and Vatican Pictures

Okay, so we wanted to do a little back tracking so we could post more pictures. We were in Rome Sept. 28th to Oct. 1st. The main highlights were the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and everything surrounding it.



The ceiling in the Sistine Chapel with the famous "Creation of Man" in the center. The guards in here were crazy strict about no photos so we had to be sneaky. Who comes all the way to Rome and DOESN'T take pictures?


We hiked up to the top of St. Peter's Basilica to get a good view of the country "Vatican City".


Once we got to the top we needed a few minutes to recuperate before we could enjoy the view!


And here it is. A country within a country. Except no one really lives here. Lots of grass I'm sure you can't play in.


Here is the view of St. Peter's Basilica. We were in that dome. The pillar to the left is a confiscated Egyptian obelisk. There are 40 all over Rome in front of all the important places.


Outside view of the Coliseum (duh!). When you step out from the closest metro stop, this is what you see. It was really "in-your-face-cool".

This is the inside and the floor is missing so you can see all the tunnel ways underneath. They even had elevator type things so that they could raise animals up from unknown places to catch the gladiators off guard.


We are standing in front of Trevi Fountain which was beautiful. This guy asked if he could take our picture for us. Ok. Then he gave me these flowers and asked for money. Ha! We are living off pasta! Yah right.