Jill and Bow's Travels

Italia pics!

I can't tell you how excited Jill was to finally see her sister Amy after all of these months! The four of us had a fantastic time! Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome and the Isle of Capri, as well as many stops in between.

Venice is everything that you picture and then some... It takes quite a while to finally feel comfortable with directions when trying to navigate through this city. All of the little streets look so similar, not to mention the many canals flowing this way and that. If it wasn't for the signs painted on the sides of the buildings we don't know what we would have done.

After we left Venice, we stopped in Bologna for lunch on our way to Cinque Terre. This place is a must if you are ever going to visit Italy! There is a walk that you do through five little towns along the coast. It is amazing!

We made another pit stop in Pisa as we were travelling down to Florence. (sorry the pics are on their side but I couldn't rotate them)

Florence was a very pretty city but the weather wasn't very good.

It was raining in Florence so once we did a tour of the city we all decided to take off to the Isle of Capri for the next couple of days. And were we ever excited that we decided to go down to Capri. The weather was wonderful and the island was fantastic! We highly recommend anyone to visit Capri but stay in Annacapri if you are looking to budget a little more. Capri itself is very expensive, though you are able to find some good deals (right Margaret and Jim)! The first few pics are in Napoli (the dirtiest and least friendly in Italy) as we caught the ferry over to the Isle of Capri.

Rome is extraordinary! There are so many sites to see and the architecture is just so authentic and pleasing to the eye... we loved it here.

While we were in Rome, we just happened to be there when this huge charity concert called, "We are the Future", was being put on by Quincy Jones. He had many stars from all over the world either performing or presenting. Here are some of the ones that we took pics of: Stomp, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Andrea Boccelli, Serena Williams, Nora Jones... We couldn't believe our luck or the fact that it was free. We had a fantastic time!!

Some pics of the various food we had along the way. We must admit, the food we ate in Italy was excellent! Check out my doughnut, it's as big as my head!

These are some various sunsets we saw across Italy. Beautiful colours!

Switzermany pics

We only spent two days in the south of Germany but it was fantastic! Fussen is quite a beautiful little town surrounded by snow capped mountains. Then we took a road tour across Switzerland because the train was so expensive!

Fussen is a very quaint little town near the borders of Austria and Switzerland. The only attractions there are two famous castles, one in which the castle at Disneyland was replicated from.

Some of our shots on our road tour through Switzerland! We started in Zurich then travelled through Luzern, Wengen (Interlauken area), Geneva and then on to Belinzona, with many stops along the way. As you can see from Jill's pic that not only was our car a mode of transportation it was also a form of accommodation for one night!

Jill and I thought that we have sent you many pics of what the locals look like in Africa, south east Asia, India, Nepal, etc... so here are some of the local Swiss citizens we came across. We were surprised at how similar they were to Canadians - they walk their children like we do, they eat the same way, talk on cell phones the same way, water their flowers when they need to, go on class trips the same way. Honestly check it out yourselves, the pictures don't lie! Though some dress a little weird, as you can tell from the last shot. Honestly, do those shoes really go with those bright canary yellow pants!?!

Fabrizio, our friend from our African tour, was an awesome host! We went to visit him for a couple of days before heading into Italy. We were also able to see Paolo whom also was on our African trip with us. These are some shots from and around their area in Switzerland. Some pics are in a valley known as the last 'hidden treasure' from the rest of the world so I will not release the true whereabouts... under strict demands from Fab and the local community! (Fab and his family share the log cabin which is high above where he actually lives)

Here is a very interesting sign that the Swiss government has put up to try and promote safe sex and AIDS prevention. It's hilarious!!