Wife in the Fast Lane: A CASTLE AND A CAVE

Tuesday, February 4

It's fun to do trips on a whim with 5 girls! Liz K., Liz D. Rebecca, Jackie and I had a slow start to Castello di Miramare and Grotta Gigante (Miramare Castle and Gigantic Cave.) There was a little miscommunication...er, I can't read emails correctly and I ended up at the wrong Liz's house at our departure time. The girls had to drive 30 minutes out of their way to come and get me. Oy! I was so grateful they did. I didn't want to miss this adventure. (I brought lots of snacks to make up for it.)
On the 10th day of rain that we've had in Italy, we drove an hour and a half to our first destination: the
castle.

I think this might be the only pic with all 5 of us.

Left to right: Liz D, Me, Liz K, Jackie and Rebecca.
Also, notice that it stopped raining for 2 seconds! You can even see sunlight over Croatia in the background.

Photo Cred: Liz D.

Our first sighting of Miramare Castle

After walking around some of the castle grounds we walked inside for a short tour. Many parts of the castle were designed to look like a navy boat. This "pointer" on the ceiling is actually attached to a wind vane on the top of the castle, so you never have to walk outside to check the direction of the wind. It was my favorite part of the castle.

We blew through the castle quickly. I think we were more interested in finding secret passageways than enjoying learning about much of the history. :)

After viewing the castle we walked through the gardens to find a geocache with Liz D.

We had to do a quick modeling shoot first. :) It was hard for this group to take a serious photo. :)

Searching for the geocache...

Found it!!

Next we had about an hour to get lunch and head to the Gigantic Cave. We found a restaurant fairly quickly just outside the main square in Trieste. I had a delicious chicken curry...in Italy!! It's hard to find any food that isn't pasta or pizza. It was so good.

This sign cracks me up. Literally everything points to the right.

After a few wrong turns (which always happens in Italy) we found the cave. They do tours every hour on the hour. We barely made it at 3:04pm.

There were two other people on the tour with us; they were Italian. The tour guide spoke to them in Italian, then gave us a short version in English.

Stalagtites

We walked about 500 steps down into the cave..which meant we had 500 steps to walk up on the other side. Phew!

These stalagmites reminded us of stacks of pancakes.

This is one of the few pictures Liz would let me take of her. She's due in 3 weeks and she walked up and down the stairs in the cave faster than I did.

One of the more awkward photos of the trip. I thought I was closer to the other girls. I also look like a giant because I'm 6 inches taller than them and I'm two steps up. Giant Joey in Grotta Gigante. Photo credit: Liz D.

The formations in the cave were deceiving. They looked somewhat soft and squishy, but they were hard as rock.

This formation looks like it has molars at the bottom.

This game is called, "Touch your tongue to something old." Eeewwww. :)

We were being so silly. The cave had great acoustics, so we started singing. (I'm sure the Italians loved that.) We sang songs from the Little Mermaid and Eminem. Haha!