Shelly's 30th Birthday in a Castle!

This was definitely a birthday to remember! Although I’m not too excited to be 30 I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday. This morning we checked out of our hotel and headed to a castle to stay on my birthday night. When we got there the receptionist told us that our ‘standard’ room would be ready in 20 minutes and she suggested that we check out the property while we waited. We walked through a corridor to go straight to the tower of the castle that overlooked the entire property and the countryside with a 360 degree view from the top. There was a staircase on the outside of the tower that led to a door that was locked (shucks). We ended up walking around the castle and finding really cool art and sculptures all over the place. When the receptionist came outside to get us, I asked if she could unlock the door so we could go up in the tower. She said that the tower was actually converted into a special room to be rented out, but she’d be happy to let us look inside. This thing was flippin’ sweet! It is 4 stories tall including a rooftop terrace. I asked if the room was booked for the night and she said no. Then I told her it was my birthday and asked if we could upgrade our room to the tower for free and she said yes!!!

After we dropped our stuff off in the room, Marshall said it was time for his surprise for me and we headed out on a 45 minute drive with gorgeous views, passing a ton of castles and were able to see a lot more of Umbria countryside. As we got closer I started to see signs for cave exploring and that is when Marshall told me that’s what we were doing! We went with an Italian group tour and were given two audio devices to listen to the preset English audio tour when we hit certain spots. We walked through a really long tunnel with doors that opened from the side like you see in movies…it even had blinking lights and everything. Fortunately no aliens popped out or I may have had to claim that new smell in the cave was from all the ‘sulfur in the air’.

Once we got to the first stop it opened up to a ginormous cave. There were multiple layers inside the cave that had all kinds of crazy formations coming from the roof (stalactites) and building up from the floor (stalagmites) all from little drops of water leaking through for a long time and depositing minerals, etc. It was stunning! We pulled out our camera to take pictures and the guide stopped us and said no photos – the audio version even came out and said they don’t allow photos because they want you to buy their photos in the gift shop. Yeah, uh no... So we put our camera away and pulled out our phone instead. We made sure to stay in the back of the pack so when the guide wasn’t looking we could snap some pictures with our phone. We took plenty of our own pictures as you can see below (Macias Family: 1, Greedy Cave Dwelling Party Poopers: 0).

We got back to the hotel around 5:30pm and Skyped with my mom for a bit on the rooftop terrace of our room for happy birthday wishes and so she could see Tyson. Shortly after we headed down to the restaurant for dinner. The server asked what we wanted to drink and I asked for a lemon drop (big mistake). When the server brought my drink to the table he said it was the first lemon drop he’d ever made. That was obvious considering the drink was orange and had an orange slice on the rim. I guess if you order a lemon drop in Italy you actually get an orange drop. We ran into similar issues in South America when ordering anything with a lemon, they will use a lime. Holy cow though, this orange drop was insanely strong. 99% jet fuel with a splash of orange squeezed in there and a (salty) ‘sugared’ rim. I tried to squeeze the orange slice into the drink and add some water to make it drinkable but there was no fixing that drink. I just gave it to Marshall who took about two sips and then said screw it. On the bright side, I've come around to enjoying a few new wines. I think Italian wine is the way to go when dessert wines aren't available. The meal was delicious though! I had ravioli stuffed with potatoes in marinara sauce and Marshall had gnocchi and steak. We were so stuffed after dinner that we didn't have room for dessert. I’m sure you are all shocked considering I always plan ahead to make sure I save room for dessert. We headed back to our room and went up the terrace to enjoy the sunset and amazing views. It was a perfect ending to the most memorable birthday ever!

Next stop: Austria!!