L'Aquilla

Early May of 2018 my husband James, son Micah & his wife Jancy rented a car from Hertz in Rome and headed to L'Aquila, which is about an hour from Rome.  Micah was serving a mission for our church and was stationed in L'Aquila when the earthquake of 2016 happened.  Amatrice is about a half hour from L'Aquila and was where most of the damage was sustained.  Micah felt the earthquake and it woke him up, but other than moving his bed a couple feet across the room, it didn't do any damage.  L'Aquila had experienced an earthquake in 2009, though, and they are still cleaning up from it.  It killed many people and destroyed many buildings and now the population is greatly decreased because so many people left afterwards.  We walked through some of the earthquake damage and saw the workers still trying to repair the old buildings.  

We met Micah's friend Andrea, who fed us lunch and was super nice. His mom lives with him and we met her too.  We drove around L'Aquila and tried to get pictures near a lot of places where Micah had sent pictures.  There is a lot of "artwork" (graffiti) all over Italy and there is some especially fun artwork in L'Aquila that Micah had sent photos during his mission and I was excited to see the same.  

We went to Hertz in Rome to rent our car to drive to L'Aquila.  The car rentals were the most expensive part of the trip.  And gas is really expensive there also.  But the cars get excellent gas mileage.

Traffic in Italy was crazy!  It was a real experience for James to learn how to drive there.  See the Italian family stickers on that car?

On the road to L'Aquila

There were lots and lots of tunnels.  Rather than go around mountains they go through them, which would be very nice in Wyoming!

We saw lots of cute little mountain towns.  We stopped in one of them for breakfast.

We ate breakfast at this cute little cafe in the cute little town.

We took this photo for Rebecca.

These are chocolate with toys inside.  They're illegal in the US because they're a choking hazard.  :)

This is the cute little town

We drank lots of Fanta in Italy.  It tasted pretty good.  We tried blue Fanta also.

One example of L'Aquila artwork

More L'Aquila artwork

Fontana Luminosa

More L'Aquila artwork

It was raining in L'Aquila.

This is the church building for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in L'Aquila

We're going to Andrea's apartment for lunch

The view out Andrea's window

The meal that Andrea made us

Andrea and his mom at lunch

Some of the construction from the earthquake.

Fontana Vecchia

Most of the streets are one way.  You knew whether you could drive on a street by the round signs.

Don't drive down this street - wrong way!

more earthquake damage

more construction workers

The castle in L'Aquila, Forte Spagnolo

The castle in L'Aquila, Forte Spagnolo, or Il Castello dell'Aquila

The area in the "moat" around the castle, where they were working on some repairs.

Walking the streets of L'Aquila

Unique door knockers

More earthquake damage

Fontana Vecchia

This is a little gas pump that was just on the side of the road.  That's how we filled up our rental car right before we returned it.  They charge 80 euro plus the price of gas if you return the car without a full tank.  That shows you what a pain it is to find a curb-side pump and fill up the car.  That lady was working at the pump and she filled the car for us.