Saturday : we drove
Sunday: Bernardkatel-kues cute town and traben-trabach wine festival
Monday: idar-oberstein castle and ram stein
Tuesday: Straussburg cathedral, and natzweiler-struhof concentration camp in France stopped in molsheim for dinner
Wednesday: trier (oldest church, sushi, porta niagra, h&m, baths, Karl Marx house
Thursday:Brussels waffles, palace, atomium,
Friday: heidleberg, castle,
Saturday: Josh, Bacharach biked to St goat walked up to burg rheinfels
Sunday: breakfast, drive home
Happy 4th from way over here!
We rolled back into town after our scuba trip just in time for a fourth of July BBQ. Here’s my man with the (difficult to photograph) kiddos at the gathering…
We decided we were too exhausted to go on post and watch fireworks. (They had a big party going on and invited Italians to come on post and see what 4th of July is all about, followed by the first fireworks they’ve had in a few years.) Sounds like we didn’t miss much though, the fireworks didn’t go up high enough and everyone on base saw only the very top of each display due to a building being in the way. LOL. We saw the fireworks great from our deck, 8 miles away.
Scuba Certified!
Nick and I have always talked about getting Scuba Certified. When we got here to Italy we found out that they have an awesome and affordable NAUI scuba program through the base outdoor recreation, so we signed up. Last week we had class every evening learning how to scuba and practice in the pool. Then for the weekend we went to Pula, Croatia where we stayed at the Stoja campgrounds and spent about 4 hours under the water during 7 training dives. Jonah stayed with friends and we had a nice adult vacation!
Nick had the brilliant idea to ask if his work would like him to do a piece about the scuba class, they said yes and gave him some TDY money (covers expenses when they have to go somewhere for work…) it helped offset the cost of our trip and he got to use the underwater video camera, awesome!
Pula Croatia is home to a few fun sites including the coolest “tiki bar” you’ve ever seen. It’s in the tall grass and you wander through the little paths in the grass to areas that open up for tables or different things to play on, including this big rolling barrel, some giant swings, a merry go round, and other random things.
Near the tiki bar are some fun cliffs to jump off of. The beaches where we were at were all rock like this, no sand really. The water was so clear it looked turquoise, beautiful.
In downtown Pula there is a roman amphitheater (like the Colosseum). It is the fourth largest roman amphitheater in existence and has been very well preserved. Did you know that they have found 230 roman amphitheater remains??? I always thought of the Colosseum as the one and only, but it’s just the biggest!
We enjoyed a Croatian Coke…it was pretty good.
Our accommodations at the Stoja campground were great. Little mobile homes by the beach, complete with a fridge and stove and even a/c. The only pic I got of the mobile homes is this one of Nick doing the wetsuit dance, man I hated getting into those things. Actually, I have to admit, all of the equipment for scuba is a major pain to haul around and get set up.
On one of our last dives we got to go through some underwater arches and also into a cave. It was really neat. We were in the Adriatic which is REALLY salty, and there weren’t as many fish or other creatures as I was hoping, but it was still really neat. We some scorpion fish, crabs and lot’s of schools of shiny fish that followed us around.
