Sandi & family say Hello from Florence
 

Have not had much internet time but wanted to say that we are having a lovely vacation...and it is nearing the end. this is my parents first european trip and their 50th anniv. we had 2 days of aqua alta in venice but made the best of it. best weather so far today in florence. tomorrow we are in rome. I will post the particulars later. ciao.

Hi sandi,

How deep was the aqua alta?

Did you need knee-high boots? :)


((I))

Thanks for checking in Sandi. Glad to hear you are having a nice time. Give my regards to David. :)

I'm glad it's going well. I look forward to hearing more when you get home.

HEY! In San Marco, at the highest point, the water was between 12 & 16". At times, we were a little locked into the area around the hotel. we could not get to the vap stops and once the vap was not running. It was cold and rainy but lovely as always. we decided to spend our 10e on things on than the plastic skipper boots as they are called. So far I believe that Paris has been the favorite with my parents, which surprised me because they were so afraid of the language. they found, as we all do eventually, that Parisians are warm and friendly in that Frech sort of way. We are from Texas so gushing the friendlyness can also be a handicap. I cant find the delete button so forgive the errors. Off to decide on dinner. Had a wonderful meal in Florence last night. More later.

Do tell us where the great Florentine meal was!

sandi, have a beautiful time in Rome.
What a wonderful 50th anniversary present you have given your parents!
Enjoy every special moment with them.

Sandi,
Thank you for taking the time to post. I think it's so exciting when Fodorites post on their trips--it's almost as if I can actually feel the energy!

Hope you continue to have a great time.

We just got home and am a bit foggy. We had a 7am flight out of Rome to Zurich then a flight from Zurich to Dallas direct. The Zur-DFW was 11hr 35 min..ouch.

We had a fabulous time together as a family and the tripaccomplished exactly what I wanted. Besides giving me some lovely time with my parents, it successfully opened their eyes to the "bigger picture". The fact that the world is really very small and we are all alike. That there's no place in the world for intolerance and war and what we do here at home can and often does effect others around the world. Also that international travel doesn't have to be scary and can be easily accomplished with research and a good attempt at the native language.

I have not had the chance to get thing together enough for a report BUT I want to mention a couple of things..some obvious (but apparently not to me at the time) and some not so obvious:

1. We got off the plane from Rome to Zurich this morning (Swiss Air) and were heading to the AA gate for the flight to Dallas. All 5 of us together went up to the immigration booths to give our papers so we could get a boarding pass. We were questioned for quite a long time and were required to show receipts from all the hotels in France, Switzerland and Italy as well as rail receipts. I'm mentioning this because some folks may not have these handy or may not even keep them. Again, we were required to dig these up and he was prepared to wait even though our flight was boarding behind us.

2. This one goes in the "what the hell was I thinking?" category. Don't stay in Rome on New Years Eve if you have an early morning flight out and expect to get any sleep. We stayed a block away from Piazza Navona and the fireworks started around 10pm and ended about 2am. Non-stop. The booms were so deafening it sounded like cannon fire across the Tiber. Constant booming, car alarms etc. We had managed to all stay healthy (even though we had a rocking start) up until about 7pm that night. My father started vomiting and was up all night. So with the fireworks, my sick Dad and a 3:15a wake up call I can most definitely say that we we'll never try to travel on this day again.

More later. Need to start the laundry.

Sandi, your poor father. How awful to be sick the night before an early morning flight. I sure hope he is alright.

BTW, when you have time I am curious about something. In Rome the citizens use to throw items out of their windows (sort of like cleaning out the old I guess). I have heard of even chairs for example being tossed out of windows.

Do you know if they still do this. That and fire crackers being set off always made me leery of being in Rome on NY Eve. Many years ago several (around a 200 if I remember correctly) lost their hands due to the fact that they lit the firecrackers but did not throw them and consequently they went off in their hands

Do have a good rest and get settled in. When you are feeling up to it a trip report will be wonderful to read.

Happy New Years to you and all your loved ones. ((*))

What a bummer about your dad being sick, Sandi. I hope the trip home wasn't too awful for him because flying while sick is certainly not fun.

Otherwise, it seems like you all had a wonderful and memorable trip. Thanks for keeping us posted on it.

He was still very ill when we were on the 2 flights home. I was concerned that if he was to worsen then he wouldn't be able to fly at all. No pharmacys were open and he could get no relief. The only thing that saved him was that they flew business class and he was able to stretch out and get a little bit more attention. By mid-way thru the 11 hr flight he was able to keep down a bite of bread.

I called my parents a little bit ago for the first time since we arrived home and apparently my Mom picked up the bug. It may take them another few days to be able to look back on the great time we did have, as opposed to the awful way it ended.