War and Reformation Tour

Back in June, we led a two week history of Europe. We traveled through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Belgium, visiting sights related to the Protestant Reformation, and military history. Above is a video we put together of some of the highlights. Here are a few pictures:

Above the clouds in the Alps, near Hitler's Eagle's Nest

Group in front of the Reformation Wall

Geneva

Reconstructed WWI Trenches

Anti tank defenses near the France-Belgium border

The group in front of our house for the second week

You can see our entire album here. We've posted the audio from some of the talks on Discerning History.

ENN: The Craters of Normandy

Vision Forum posted the Everyday News report we did while we were in Europe.
from here.

ENN: The Craters of Normandy from Joshua Horn on Vimeo.

The quality is not the best because we did not have much time while we were there.

Day 11 - Vigo

On the eleventh day of our cruise, we docked at Vigo. There was a fort at the top of the hill (like most ports) and since there was really nothing else to do we went up there. There was a fort half-way up the hill too, which was pretty nice, but we kept on going to the top. At the top there was a monument to three Spanish warships which were destroyed when Drake raided along the Spanish shore. Most of their valuable cargo was got on shore, but the ships sank. One neat thing about it was that it had the three anchors, one from each ship, and five cannons which were also recovered. At the top was an abandoned hotel built to look like a castle, which looked like part of it had been burnt. There were a few walls, but it was mostly gardens and fountains inside of it. After that we went back to the cruise ship to eat lunch. Then, Mommy, Daddy, and Joshua went shopping. Joshua bought a couple replica pistols, but Mommy and Daddy did not buy anything. Here are some pictures:

The outside of the fort

Me looking into one of the watchtowers

The courtyard of the castle (Mommy and Rachel liked the snapdragons)

The opposite side of the bay

Some flowers in the garden

Day 6 - Cagliari

On this day we went to the town Cagliari on an island called Sardinia, which is right off the coast of Italy. We did not have anything that we really wanted to do in the town, so we did not get up very early. After we ate breakfast, we got off the ship, and decided to walk up to the castle on top of the hill, because that was really the only interesting thing there. There was not really a whole lot to see in the castle, it was pretty big, but there were really only four walls. The castle had a good view from the wall, but where we spent the most time was going to a museum inside of the castle. The museum had things from the island that were collections that people on the island used to own. There collections were tapestries, lace, dolls, and a couple of suits of traditional outfits. After we saw that part of the museum, we went down into the basement, where there were models of the castle and the town from 3 different time periods, and cisterns from the Roman empire. After that we went back to the ship, ate lunch, and went swimming (there was a water slide in the pool), then we ate dinner.Joshua, Rachel, and Stephen in the pool

The water slide was a lot of fun!

This castle has a lot of steps

The model of the castle in the museum.

A suit of the full-sized clothes.

Handwoven donkey blankets

Mommy and Daddy walking at the wall of the castle.

The dolls were dressed in clothes like they used to wear.

Day 5 - Pompeii

On Day 5, we took the train from Naples to Pompeii. Naples is a very dirty city and there was a long walk to the train station. When we got to Pompeii, we got off the train, got tickets and went in. Pompeii was a resort city for Rome, meaning that the Roman citizens had vacation homes there. Pompeii was destroyed in 79 A.D., when the nearby Mt. Vesuvius erupted. Pompeii was a very perverse city when it was destroyed. People would just throw their trash into the streets, so they made the fountains overflow to wash out the streets. Because of this there were sidewalks for pedestrians, and large stones were placed in the streets for people to cross the street, and the chariots could go over them. Like in Rome, there were temples to everyone they could think of.

The people in Pompeii probably did not know the destruction was coming. There had been some earthquakes, but there had been earthquakes before. They probably started that day like they would have started any other day. They ate and drank and were merry, not knowing that they would surely die.

We walked through the streets and looked at some of the buildings. Many of the houses were well preserved, and in some you could still see mosaics. Pompeii had it's own amphitheater, and a house where they trained the gladiators. It was very much like Rome because it was a Roman city. Here are some pictures:

The entrance to the city

Mount Vesuvius as seen from Pompeii

Me giving a talk on Pompeii

Pillars from the temple of Jupiter

Ancient Crosswalks

An original drain

Pillars from one of the temples

Daddy in Pompeii

Day 4 - Rome

On Day 4, we docked at Civitavvechia and took the train into Rome. We got off the train, and took the metro to the Coliseum. (We had gotten a pass so that we could take any bus, or metro in the city, and one round trip train ride.) After we got off of the metro, we walked to the Forum, which was right across the street. At first we could not find how to get into the Forum, because we did not know that we had to get a ticket. We finally found where to get the tickets, and there was a line so we had to wait.

Inside there were ruins and a lot of temples. The emperor would make his father a god after his death, and build a temple to him. This progressed until they would make anyone who died a god, like the temple to Romulus was built by his father when Romulus died. The first thing we went to was the Senate Building, which was where the Senate met, and the senators made oration. Next we went to an arch, which was dedicated to Servetus, who was a successful general. The Romans tried to terrorize their subjects, so on the side of the monument there were carvings of people being taken away by Roman soldiers to be executed. When he fell out of political favor, the government decided to rewrite history, and so on the arch they crossed out that it was dedicated to Servetus, and put instead that it was dedicated to the basic principles.

After that, we saw the place where the common people went to discuss things, as opposed to the place where the Senate met. After that we saw a swamp where people would throw in their offerings to Julius Caesar when he was a god. They had a memorial there to a knight who drowned in it with his horse while trying to get a piece of gold for the emperor. There were a lot of stones all over the place from the buildings that have fallen down. We went to the place where Augustus Caesar was buried, and there is an the altar there. Around it were flowers and money, which people had throne recently, because the religion of Rome has not changed. People still worship the emperors, just like they did a long time ago.

After that we walked up to the royal gardens, and the emperor's house. It was built under the gardens so that it did not mess them up. Just one room, for example the dining room, was as big as our whole house! On the same hill, archaeologists had found and dug up where they think Romulus first started the colony.

That was the end, and the exit was blocked so we had to find another exit, which we did, but that one was blocked too. We finally found an exit, and there were a lot of stairs to get down because we were on a hill. After we got down, we had to wait for Daddy, because he had rented an audio tour to tell him what things were and what happened (there were literally only 2 interpretive signs) and they took his drivers license to make sure he gave it back. After he got back we went to a sandwich booth to get lunch.

Almost as soon as we were done with lunch it started to rain. It started to downpour, and we went into the Colosseum. Our grandparents were tired of walking so they did not go through the Colosseum with us. In modern stadiums they use the same design that the Romans used because they could empty thousands of people from it in 20 minutes. Even though we might think that the Romans were primitive people, they were not. They had pulleys to raise the stage, and if they wanted to they could flood it, and then stage a sea war. After we went through the Colosseum, we got back on the metro, then on the train, and back onto the cruise ship.

Some of the pillars from the temple of Saturn

The arch dedicated to the Roman General

Zoomed in so that you can see where it was edited (4th line down on the left)


The temple that Roman Catholic churches are modeled after (notice the three rows)


Daddy talking about the place we were at


The arch the Romans built to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem


The Colosseum(this is not how it would have looked; this is the "basement" of the stage)