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Saturday morning was one last slice of breakfast cake followed by one final train ride to the airport. Luggage was taken away by the worker bees and we boarded to start the 8.5 hours of air time west bound to Philadelphia. We got lucky that Simi's trick to keep the seat next to me empty worked as I was able to enjoy some leg room with no one next to me. I'm not good at cat napping so I watched 4 movies in a row, stopping to stretch and walk the aisle during the credits of each. The food supplied by the airline was actually pretty good, and they even gave us some gelato. How fitting! Back in America it was easy to get from Philly to Columbus where our friends were kind enough to pick us from the airport. We shared brief highlights of the trip over some milkshakes and cheeseburgers. That night we were crashing hard on jet lag and it was so nice to have sleep in Sunday in our own bed. We were also super appreciative to know going back home, everything was in order at the hou

The penultimate vacation day (Day 16) started off with hopping on some electric bikes and getting a 4 hour guided tour loop all around the highlights of Italy's capital. Our guide rode with us and he knew the ins and outs of the streets for the best views, least crowds, and was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. The bike route gave us great views of The Colosseum and the Forums and he was quick to remind us Rome was a rich layer cake of history. Each ruler wanted to make his mark, so he'd build newer, bigger, better things right smack on top of the existing. Modern archeological finds continue to discover these layers as they peel back history. The bike loop took us to the Pantheon. This former Roman temple started construction in the year 118. At 140 foot tall, the granite dome structure has stood for almost two thousand years of wars and natural disasters with no drop in human use. The dome itself is still the world's largest unreinforced dome, and still features The

What better way to recover from a long arduous day on the feet than to agree to tackle 463 steps right up to the top of a church tower? The next morning started off meeting a tour guide digesting more information than thought possible on the Florence Duomo (Cathedral). We viewed more pure gold ceilings with historical scenes followed by the guided tour of the museum where the original solid gold doors to the Duomo were kept restored and under a vacuum. At the time, the use of gold on everything for construction wasn't enough and the way to make a city stand out from the crowd was to build bigger and bigger churches. The Florence Duomo was constructed so massive that for years there was a giant hole in the roof as no one had yet figured out how to create it's 300 foot high domed ceiling. The city held a contest to see who could come up with a solution and after a long time of searching they had a contractor. His name was Brunelleschi and for the 16 years it took to build he

The next day was started with cake and then a water taxi trip to The Doge's Palace. This building is right next to the Campanile where we were the night before but the Palace was closed at that time. The Doge is a bit like the king, and he likes things nice. The Doge's "living room" is larger than 4 basketball courts. It has a ceiling of hand carved solid gold picture frames that wrap around life size paintings of historic events and their participants. The sheer scale and grandeur of going from room to room, each as staggeringly beautiful in size and scale than the next couldn't be put into words. The exploration of the Palace led into the prison, armory and the Doge's apartments. My mind couldn't wrap around how these rooms were built at this scale so long ago and I'm even in the construction industry! Leaving the Doge's Palace it was time to depart Venice to go south to Florence. We had about an hour left in Venice but found out that our wate

Our GPS phone app joined us for the first day of exploring Venice. This is a full on requirement as we'd probably still be down some 5 foot wide avenue trying to find our way back to civilization. Our trip took us in the most convoluted way to the Rialto Bridge. This passage is historic and beautiful as it is coated with tourists for a perfect view of the canal; and the latest apparel from Nike. It was kind of sad to see something of architectural presence commercialized to blatantly. The Rialto Bridge was where our water taxi was going to take us out to the island of Burano. This is a quiet "suburb" 25 minutes boat ride outside of Venice. They have with rows of houses painted in all shades of the rainbow and the is where they produce of some of the best handmade lace in Europe. The taxi returned us to the floating city of Venice and we opted to take a full taxi ride from A to Z across the Grand Canal. This was great to really appreciate all the chaos of the day to da

Monday we had our cake for breakfast again because we could and then it was onboard a train bound for Bologna, Italy. The big luggage bags were dumped in a storage locker and our next stop was from Bologna to Modena, the home of Ferrari. At that train station a bright Ferrari red bus lined with wood floors and leather seats took us to the Enzo Ferrari museum. Ferrari has two museums. One is dedicated to the man who founded the company and the other to the company itself. Within the Enzo museum all the best cars are displayed and there's a movie that plays showing the impact the company has had on pop culture. All the celebrities drive Ferraris. Next to the Enzo building was a giant glass and brick shed decorated like an old garage. This building was dedicated to the engines that power the Ferraris, past and present. There were a few Ferrari races cars that had retired into living in the museum as well as the test mules that the factory used to develop their latest models. The

Sunday morning was some more breakfast cake, and the skies were crystal clear blue and the temperatures were perfect. The Porsche SuperCup cars were back out early Sunday morning and were bouncing off the first chicane curbs like exuberant toddlers at a playground. The Formula 1 drivers were then paraded around the track in classic and historic cars like they had just became the homecoming queen. I ventured during this break to hit up the tent for lunch. Security had changed their protocol and instead of returning to my grandstand I had to go back through the main gate to get into our stands. This was incredibly ineffective. All water bottles had to have their caps removed so they couldn't be thrown. I had just bought 4 bottles with my lunch. Two of them I pocketed, and the other two I removed the caps, put the caps into my pocket, and after a 45 minute delay finally made it back to the stands. Luckily there was no racing action that I'd missed. Our seats were in turn one an

Saturday the heaven's opened. It was just bucketing rain down, but that's what rain tires are for. The track's dirt roads were mud pits and everything was just soaked. Thankfully we were prepared with our raincoats and rainpants! Some locals apparently missed on buying the Ferrari rain coats as they were seen shivering in their bright red soaked to the bone t-shirts just hoping to get to cheer on the home team. The Saturday morning practice was deemed too wet to send the cars out, and all the support races were canceled. Our grandstand had a giant tent that was serving food and was a refuge for the showers. Cappuccino for Simi and we split a freshly made Philly cheese steak for lunch and continued to wait out the rain. A small break in the deluge had the cars on track for the first of three sessions only for the one driver to hydroplane and spin bouncing off the concrete walls like a pin ball. He walked away, but the head official then set out a red flag ending racing acti

Friday morning - Race Weekend! What better way to get our engines running with a slice of chocolate cake. Breakfast Cake! They served it and we ate it! The hotel's breakfast buffet standard bacon, eggs, cereals, etc. lined the table, but at the end they had chocolate cake, apple pie, and apricot tarts as if the chef forgot them from the night before. It must be some customary service because each brekkie we had in Milan always had the assortment of cakes. Technically a muffin is like cake, so why not just change the shape and remove the muffin wrapper? Back to the racing, to let you know Milan is the closest major city to Parco Di Monza. Inside the largest walled park in Europe lies droves of Ferrari fans for their "home race" in Italy. The original Monza oval rivals our Spa visit the week prior as one of the oldest and most historic race locations. The track has changed in the decades but it still is the Cathedral of Speed for the Italians. There are still remains of

Thursday was a lazy day as the rains came down in the morning. We hit up the breakfast buffet at the hotel, and then with no real plan opted to just go back to sleep on a full stomach. Post breakfast naps are amazing. The laundry was picked up and the luggage was re-repacked. Not wanting to waste the day, we trekked to the bus station in full rain gear, and took a bus down to the National Swiss Automotive Museum. The general lobby had a lot on display, but peaking around the entry gates there wasn't a whole lot in the history of Swiss automobiles. The rain still fell so it was movie time! Next to the museum were a few other attractions and they were playing a 3D Space movie. This American made film dubbed over into German for the locals, but dubbed back to English for us yanks chronicled the NASA Space Program at a Swiss Museum. The rain finally drained the clouds, and the roads were drying and time to just explore some more before everything closed again and we had to get to t

Wednesday was started off with a breakfast buffet and then a quick with a walk down to the boat docks where Simi had booked us on a Golden Route Tour. We boarded the boat and went on take a nice leisurely cruise across Lake Lucerne while gazing off in the distance the soaring Mount Pilatus - were we'd be standing at the top of in a few short hours. The boat stopped at a few docks to unload some passengers. Our boat dock stop was at the base of the world's steepest cogwheel railway to take us to the top. A rail car with big windows and bigger teeth grab the specialized train track as the little engine chugs up the side of Pilatus. The teeth prevent the train from jumping the tracks or giving in to gravity as the slope maxes out at 48%. That's steepness near impossible to walk on, but if you are adventurous and don't mind the exercise, you can walk the hiking switchback filled trail to the top in a mere 4 hours. The cog is about a 40 minute clickity-clackity ride to the

Breakfast fueled us up for the one scheduled day to soak in Zurich. The local tram escorted us downtown to get a lay of the land. After doing some exploring we opted to just go south of the city to Lake Zurich and found a park bench where we lost track of time staring off at the nearly clear blue water, and the puffy white clouds that ebbed and flowed around the mountaintops. We hunted down some souvenirs (Swiss chocolate!) and then were at the train station for a trip south west to Lucerne, Switzerland. We had gotten the recommendation for Lucerne from our wise neighbor who had traveled to the area on a school trip many moons ago.   https://photos.app.goo.gl/ A0cw9KjQui02OQTl1 Arrival in Lucerne meant a spark of excitement, quickly unloading and immediately going exploring. At the base of Lake Lucerne the city was thriving with life. The two parts of their main city center are split by the Reuss River that drains the lake. The two banks of the flowing waters are connected by t

Monday bought with it a 5am alarm. Our shuttle to the Brussels airport was going at the crack of dawn, but it also meant zero traffic. We were scheduled to fly south to Zurich, Switzerland. At the airport, we stored our bags and took advantage of the internal combustion engine and hopped onto a double-decker tour bus of Brussels for a majority of the afternoon. This wise move limited our walking. I tried some hot pepper chicken pad Thai for lunch, and then almost lost that lunch when we found out that they offer up carbonated ice tea. The bottle wasn't labeled and I don't think I'd ever tasted anything that foul. I tightened the cap and shook the bottle and released the pressure repeatedly for a good 15 minutes to maybe see if it was salvageable, and no friends, it was not. Brussels had the amazing building called the Atomium. This is a 1958 World's Fair creation of an iron crystal that's been magnified 165 billion times. It's a remarkable structure only out do

Race day meant Sunday morning was super bright and early as we were going with 60,000 potential new friends to the circuit. Simi's favorite driver blew the car's engine, and the race itself was great. There were two teammates battling for position and they slammed into each other right in front of us with their car's breaking apart and the debris lined the track. This has been a strangely consistent issue between these guys. Their wreck brought out a safety car that brunched up the field for a last lap battle that just didn't pan out to be one for the ages. It was still an epic race and when the driver's were spraying the champagne Simi and I were climbing the exit hill and all under the darkening clouds that threatened more rain. Once out of the mass exodus jam, Sunday evening was more discovery of Maastricht and just getting lost intentionally to see what's around the next block. That night we shamelessly were in bed and fell asleep at 8pm. It was still light

Saturday began with me and the surrounding hills in a fog. I wanted a full night of sleep, and after getting a free (unwanted) shower while at the track Friday afternoon, I thought it best to kick any potential for a flu type bug by taking a Nyquil that night. That fog eventually was shaken off by the sound of 30+ Porsche SuperCup cars blasting through the trees and around the circuit. We had a split peppercorn burger for lunch, and found some comfy spots in the trees off the pedestrian walkways for a well needed afternoon nap. Jet lag is just a pain. On track the support series continued their schedule, and the F1 cars qualified for Sunday's race with an almost disappointing regularity. Another trip back to Maastricht for al fresco dining / people watching. By the way, gelato is just so tasty.

Maastricht is home to a university in which almost half of their classes are attended by Americans and taught in English. The small little city split by the Meuse River had zero problems adapting to our lack of knowing much of the Dutch tongue. The local restaurants welcomed us and we enjoyed some burgers that night, doing much to make sure the cook didn't accidentally offer up horsemeat. This offering was seemingly more popular than just a good old chicken sandwich. Walking is just dodging the hundreds and hundreds of co-eds as they blast around the city center on their bikes the night ended as it was reaching the breaking point of insomnia - but of course we finished off the night with a freshly baked Belgian waffle topped with ice cream. Friday started with Steve picking us up at the hotel's breakfast table and taking us to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. It's Race Weekend! The track's original layout in the 1920s of over 9 miles for one lap has been reduced to sti

Simi and I spent the better part of 2017 planning for our ten year anniversary trip. With a quick study of the Formula 1 calendar, we agreed to take advantage of back to back race weekends at two of the sport's most iconic tracks, Spa and Monza. Both located in central Europe it was Simi's amazing hard work and tenacity that 17 days were filled out for another epic adventure. Our trip began leaving Columbus with 4 bags and a friend giving us a lift to the airport for a quick flight to Charlotte. From Charlotte we flew to Heathrow, Simi had taken the gamble to book me a window seat with an empty seat next to it, the fuselage makes a great headrest for my lanky frame. The seat next to me was open just until the flight was about to take off at 10pm. A reroute from the airline meant our plane filled up and the lady that was now next to me was going to greatly limit my ability to get any extra leg room. The lady was lost on the touch screen programming of the in flight movie havi