I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking at DevReach in Sofia, Bulgaria next month.  This is the sixth year for this conference - which bills itself as the Premier Conference on Microsoft Technologies in Eastern and Central Europe - but its the first time for me. 

In fact I have never been to any of the countries in Eastern Europe, the furthest east in Europe I have been being Vienna in Austria and Helsinki in Finland.

I am quite excited, both to be able to speak at this event – but also for the opportunity to experience Bulgaria.

I will presenting two sessions – one on Razor and one on building ASP.NET Applications using WebFormsMVP and the Model View Presenter pattern.

• The Almighty @ - A Razor Primer

• Have your Cake and Eat it Too – Using the WebFormsMVP Framework to Develop Testable Web Applications

While not focused on DotNetNuke – DotNetNuke plays a large part in both sessions – as DotNetNuke supports both Razor and the WebFormsMVP project.

So if you live in Eastern Europe – and are planning on attending DevReach – come and see my sessions and say Hi.

This year was my wife Eileen and my 25th Wedding Anniversary, so we decided to go to Italy for 17 days in June - spending our actual anniversary in Florence.  I decided not to take my laptop with me, so I wasn't able to blog while we were traveling, so I am now taking the opportunity to tell the story of our "Italy 2008" trip.

This is our last day in Italy, we go home tomorrow.  We had thought of taking the train to Pompeii to see the Roman ruins there, but Rick Steves suggest that Ostia Antica (the port of Rome) is as good a visit – and its a free transit ride with our Roma Pass.

Its another hot day.  We had out to take the Metro to the “Pyramid” station on Metro Line B.  At the Pyramid station we transfer to the Ostiense Regional Railway station to catch the train to Ostia Antica.  There is a train waiting in the station, so we jump right on – not literally though.  We stand most of the way – there are a lot of Italian families with young kids heading to the “Lido” for a day at the beach.

When we get to the Ostia Antica stop it is a short walk to the entrance to the site.  Like the Colosseum it is one of the sites on our Roma Pass – so we get in for free.  (I have added it up and the entrance fees to the two sites alone is 19 Euro (11 Euro for the Colosseum and 8 Euro for Ostia Antica) and the pass only cost 20 Euro, so all but 1 Euro of our Metro and bus travel was effectively free).

Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica is not quite as weel preserved as Pompeii – but it is also not as crowded.  We decided at about 3 that we had walked enough – we had barely covered about a third of the site.

That night, we took a risk for dinner – a restaurant Rick Steves recommended that had no menu – you ate what was served!  It was a wonderful meal – a traditional Rome dinner.

Useful Links:

• Ostia Antica – Wikipaedia -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostia_Antica_(archaeological_site)

This year was my wife Eileen and my 25th Wedding Anniversary, so we decided to go to Italy for 17 days in June - spending our actual anniversary in Florence.  I decided not to take my laptop with me, so I wasn't able to blog while we were traveling, so I am now taking the opportunity to tell the story of our "Italy 2008" trip.

Today we are going back to the Vatican – this time as tourists.  I have booked a walking tour of the Vatican Museum with “Angel Tours Rome”, another of Rick Steves recommended tour companies.

We retrace the route we took yesterday, catching the metro to the “Ottaviano – San Pietro” station, and walking to St. Peter’s square where we are supposed to meet our tour group.  When we are all gathered, we are split into through groups of about 12 – each with our own guide  - Kenneth – a Scot is out guide.

The tour is wonderful, and Kenneth is very entertaining – sometimes a bit irreverent.  During the tour we “lose” 6 of our group – we get separated during one of the crowded sections – not sure where they went – but they had been concerned about our finish time, as they had another tour to get to.

Vatican

As we now only 6 people – Kenneth offered to take us on a tour of St. Peters after.  Technically, he was not acredited by St. Peter’s as a tour guide, but with such a small group, we could pass as a group of friends touring the Basilica.

St Peter’s Basilica

After our tour of St. Peter’s, Kenneth recommended a local restaurant – off the beaten track – not even in Rick Steves, and we all went there for a lovely traditional Roman lunch of Pasta, Salad and Pizza.  The six of us split the bill, and treated kenneth to lunch as his “tip”.

We were exhausted by then – our 2 and a half hour tour had been 5 hrs, so we headed back to the hotel for a nap, before heading down the Via Nationale for some “shopping”, followed by dinner at Restaurant Target – next door to our hotel.

Useful Links:

• Angel Tours Rome – the tour company we used for the Vatican tour - www.angeltoursrome.com