Our last trip to Italy ... and it was to Naples?

Naples is dirty, smelly, and dangerous. But it also has the closest big airport to Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Pompeii, and the beautiful Amalfi Coast. It also has some pretty good pizza. So, for our last trip to Italy - the country we've visited the most during our time here in Europe - we decided to fly into Naples and see what the city - and the region - has to offer.

What did Elizabeth like the best, you ask? Pizza!

And what did she think would be the grossest regional specialty? Spaghetti pie!

Here's how the trip went:

Sorrento: We spent most of our time - and every night - in Sorrento, a small city on a craggy ledge overlooking a beautiful part of the Mediterranean. Elizabeth is discovering the neat shards of 1,000 year old terracotta that litters the beaches here. Either that or a shiny piece of sea glass that still says Heineken on it.

Capri: Elizabeth vomited on the bumpy boat ride to this enchanted isle. Once there, we had a cannoli, some freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a slow, steady walk around the beautiful island. Aside from blarf, 'twas most enjoyable.


Pompeii: This is a city. You've all no doubt heard that fact. But until you go, you fail to appreciate that this is not just another normal archeological site. This is a whole freaking city that had 30,000 people in it. Google tells me is 31 square miles...which is larger than the city of Fort Lauderdale. Apparently this whole city was buried under 20 feet of ash. So, imagine digging out with teeny tiny spoons and brushes the city of Fort Lauderdale. The roads. The houses. The businesses. The seedy brothels. I was blown away.

Elizabeth, it seems, was as well .... as she still thought there was digging left to do.

Positano and Amalfi: We boarded a bus for Amalfi one day, which took us up, down, and around zigzag roads with unbelievable vistas. If you love natural beauty, you would have been staring at the horizon the whole time and not noticed that your stomach was being thrown around your insides. If you're a 20-month-old toddler, you're probably peeling a wad of gum off the ashtray in the seatback ... and feeling every lurch.

Elizabeth blarfed here too.

So we got off at Positano and spent the day recuperating on the beach with pizza and, yes, freshly squeezed lemonade.

Naples: A good-hearted whore is what Linda calls this city. She (Naples) also makes good pizza. We only spent a few hours here, dodging errant vespas and ducking into quiet streets, churches, and museums. It was just enough to enjoy ourselves without catching VD.

Vico Equense: According to Fodders, this town is home to the best Italian pizza joint in the World. It also has perhaps the skankiest beach we've ever visited. It seems everyone just discards their litter, breaks their bottles into teeny pieces, and rips up napkins and straws and throws them on the beach. So after enjoying the beautiful views that surround the trashy beach and swimming around the cigarette butts and styrofoam balls we finished our pizza pie and were looking for a trashcan to discard trash...but we couldn't find a trash can everywhere. We were apparently in it.

Nice views, though. And a nice - and appropriate - finishing touch to our trip ... our last trip to Italy. Dirty but relaxing and generally satisfying.

Baltic Cruise - St. Petersburg and a few other places

As many of you have heard, our time in Europe is coming to an end. And one of the things we wanted to do before we left is see how many cruises we could fit into a year. Looks like it's going to be three.

This most recent cruise was #2, a seven-day Baltic boatride from Oslo to Copenhagen to Tallinn (Estonia) to St. Petersburg and back. Once again, the cruise didn't disappoint. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas, a ship which gets an A+ for its determination to stuff us silly while entertaining and transporting us across the seas. And as an added bonus, it was also nice to re-live a few memories from 2005, when Kate and I went on this same ship for our honeymoon cruise through Alaska's Inside Passage.

Elizabeth loved it too, despite having no previous memories of the ship. She especially liked the bottomless bowls of butter pads available at the buffet. This girl loves her butter.

We took many snappy snaps on our adventure, so I'll make this "snappy" by shutting up and showing you some photos. But first, here's a movie showing Elizabeth's awesome antics:

Copenhagen (It rained. So we just went to Tivoli ... which is the best part anyway):

Kate with Hans Christian Anderson; we took a similar shot last time we were there.

E liked that the ice cream at Tivoli had a similar taste/texture to butter

Kate's moms' group friend Stine (center in above pic) and daughter met us there

(she's Danish)

Waiting for the bus. This is probably Kate's favorite picture.

Tallinn (Cuter than you'd expect):

Note the Texas shop

This is probably my favorite shot.

We ate at a garlic-themed restaurant where even dessert (ice cream) had garlic in it

St. Petersburg (Not cute, but very impressive. Opulent and run down at the same time):

She's not crazy; she's waving to E on the bus. OK, maybe she's crazy.

That's a Picasso I think looks like Kate, who had a hair-ache this day.

Oslo (Small, nature-y, expensive, and very international):

"Just going for a walk with my stick. See you at the summit."

E actually took this picture after we told her which button to press.

Buttercups. Again, we're pretty sure she's not crazy.

On the cruise:

Shadow puppet theater

E really wanted to play in the pool, but babies weren't allowed. So we splashed instead.

We broke out the nautical attire.

Outtakes:

Check out the record-setting wisps. She's trying to be like Kramer.

Snack O'Clock but no snacks!

I'm a bit too douchey for words.

The Russian girls visiting the Hermitage all posed like slutty dancers while their friends took pictures. I was showing what they looked like.

E didn't like that the marshmellow was so fluffy. She apparently got used to it because she wanted more immediately after crying.