VENI VIDI VICI

So due to spotty wifi in Roma, and no wifi in Venice and London, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I have made it through Italy!

After leaving Rome, we headed to Venice.

Venice is a sweet little city of islands and canals.  The atmosphere is very touristy, but there are no automobiles or bicycles on the islands so there is a laid back atmosphere.  The churches all over the place are really intricate inside, and I saw a couple places that were in some great movies (I was where the "library" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was) St. Mark's square was beautiful and the water right next to is was a beautiful blue-green color.  It looks just like the movies with boats and gondolas going around all over the place.

Another cool part of Venice is their tradition of Carnivale.  There are many shops around the city that have super intricate masquerade masks and those shops were a joy to stop in and browse for a while.  (I got a mask)

After Venice we headed to London... I'm going to split up the posts so that it doesn't get so long.

Santa Maria of Salute Basilica

St. Mark's Square

St. Mark's from the side... The front was being worked on.

Bridge of Sighs.  This bridge connects the New Prison with the Doge's Palace interrogation room.  Lord Byron named the bridge the Bridge of Sighs because it was the last view of Venice a convict would see before being taken into the prison cell and they would sigh because they wouldn't see the beautiful Venice anymore.  (Apparently that isn't really the case, but it's the legend)

Rialto Bridge.

Went to see the Pope, he wasn't around...

Today, We went to the Vatican City.  For those who don't know, Vatican City is it's own sovereign country and the seat of the Roman Catholic Church.  It is where the pope (currently Pope Francis) lives and is the sight of St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world.

We started out the day with a tour.  Our tour guide was wonderfully knowledgeable about all things Vatican and took us all around explaining what we were seeing and what it all meant.  Also, inside the walls of the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel.  This is one of the most famous buildings in the world and is where Michelangelo spent 4 years on scaffolding, lying on his back, painting the ceiling with many things... Unfortunately, they do not allow pictures inside.  But let me tell you, it is one of the coolest things I have seen in all the travels.

St. Peter's Basilica is also quite beautiful with frescoes painted all around and sculptures all throughout the church.  We could also walk under the basilica where there are the tombs of many of the previous popes.

After we left there we walked by Castel Sant'Angelo and then around the city some more.

As promised, some pics from yesterday,

Sun shining through the oculus of the Pantheon.

Piazza Navona

Inside the Church of St. Ignatius

The Pigna, or Pine cone, which is placed in a courtyard linking the Vatican and the Piazza del Belvedere.

The ceiling in the hall of maps.  As you might be able to see, there are maps all along the walls here of towns and regions of Italy.

St. Peter's Basilica from the inside.

Scotland, the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona

Today, we started out the day by heading to a Church of Scotland here in Rome.  It was cool because first of all, we could understand what they were saying, and secondly it was funny to find a non-catholic church in Rome.  After the service, we were invited to the terrace of the building for refreshments, and their view was an awesome panorama of the roman rooftops.

Then we made our way to the Pantheon.  The pantheon was originally commissioned by Marcus Agrippa sometime between 27 BC and 14 AD as a temple to all the gods of Rome.  It was rebuilt in 156 AD by the Emperor Hadrian and is one of the only temples from Ancient Rome that has been well preserved.  Since the 7th Century, the Roman Catholic church has used the building as a church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs"  The building has been used to inspire many architectural works including the Rotunda on the grounds at the University of Virginia.

After that we went to the Piazza Navona and walked around.  That was a large plaza filled with many street artists and performers.

View from the terrace of the church we went to.

Front of the Pantheon.

...The wifi is preventing me from loading more pics... More might come later.

A funny thing happened today...

We were on the way to the Roman Forum and... I'm sorry if you don't catch the reference.   Nothing particularly funny happened today, but today was awesome.

We started out the day and went down to the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum.  The Palatine hill is the place where the Emperor's of the Roman Empire lived.  In the old times, there was a huge structure on the hill where they lived.  The word we know as Palace comes from the word Palatine.  There was the stadium, where there would be processionals and foot races and the like.  The palatine hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The Roman forum had ruins of the many old temples, such as the Temple of Saturn, Castor and Pollux, Julius Caesar, and many more.  On one side of the forum is the Capitoline Hill, another of the Seven Hills of Rome.

After the forum we went to the Trevi Fountain. This is a huge fountain designed by Nicola Salvi in 1732.  Salvi died before the project was completed, Giuseppe Pannini finished it in 1762.  The fountain is almost 90 feet tall and over 160 feet wide.

Then we walked down to the Piazza del Popolo, or People's Square.  In the center of the square is an Egyptian obelisk of Rameses II which is one of the tallest obelisks in Rome.  There are twin churches, Santa Maria in Montesanto and Santa Maria dei Miracoli.  There is a big arch on the other side of the piazza and there is a building on the Pincian Hill which also borders the Piazza (this hill is not one of the seven hills of Rome though).

The Stadium on Palatine Hill.

Antonius and Faustina Temple.

Temple of Saturn.

Temple of Vespatian.

Trevi Fountain in daytime.

Obelisk of Rameses II

Trevi Fountain at night.

When in Rome

Today was our first day in Rome.

We started out the morning early by going and getting some laundry done.  I was great because we could drop it off and then go get some breakfast and after that, we stopped in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.  I have to watch myself or I will say impressive in every sentence that I describe something.  Everything we saw was beautiful and ornate and astounding.

After we got our laundry we went to the Colosseum.  We walked around that for hours.  It was great to see one of the great wonders of the world in person and touch it and mosey around inside.  I kept thinking "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius..."

We walked down by the Circus Maximus and saw where there would have been chariot races.  Then walked up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier/Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II.  There we walked in and got a great panorama of the city.

We then went to Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martini and spent some time in there.

Santa Maria Maggiore

And inside.

The Colosseum.

I soooo wanted to get down there.

Went back in time.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

That's St. Peter's basilica in the back.

Inside Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martini.

Pompeii and getting stuck in Sorrento

Yesterday we had a plan to head out to the Amalfi coast and then head back with the idea we were going to go to Pompeii today.... Well all that changed because there was a strike on the Circumvesuviana that meant we could not make it the first leg to Sorrento like we wanted to.

Instead, we found a bus that would take us to Pompeii and so we did that.  Pompeii was astounding.  It was so interesting to see Mt. Vesuvius (first real life volcano I have seen in person... sorry Hawaiian Rumble, you aren't real) and wonder what the people of Pompeii were thinking when it erupted.  It was weird to see how big the city was and how well preserved some of the things there were.  The view from around the city was also beautiful with all the snow capped mountains and cliff faces in the distance across the water.

When we left Pompeii, we noticed that the train was running again and so we continued on to Sorrento, thinking we could take a bus down the Amalfi coast and then make it back to Naples that night. Oops, when we got to Sorrento, the person in the ticket office said unless we left very soon, we would not be able to make it back by train because the strike was back on.  So, we made an adventure of it.  We found a REALLY nice hostel that was pretty cheap in Sorrento and booked it for that night and then explored Sorrento.

Sorrento is a very nice town.  It is super laid back and the coastal views are amazing.  It almost looks like coastal Florida only 500 feet above the water.  We had dinner at a local restaurant and I have to say, the Bruschetta that they had is definitely in the top two things I have eaten on this trip.  It was so good that I am tearing up a little just talking about it (jk).   It was also cool to see that they have lemon and orange trees everywhere, they line the streets and you see little orchards in the middle of town with trees all full of fruit.

We made it back to Naples the next morning and explored there.  Naples is a pretty hectic, dirty, disorganized city but there is still beauty to be found here.  The views of the bay are astounding and the Duomo here is really cool inside.

We are off to Rome tonight.

Ruins of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background.

More Pompeii.

Mount Vesuvius.

Deep valley in Sorrento, looking from Piazza Tasso.

Palazzo di Villa Fiorentino.

Some topography of Sorrento.

Castel Nuovo.

Inside the Napoli Duomo.

Pisa and Firenze

It's been a while since I last posted... This is mainly due to the fact that the wifi in the last hostel was absolutely no good.  The fact that Florence was so cool more than made up for that fact.

So last I left you, we were in Milan.  Our last day, we went and saw San Siro.  This is the football (soccer) stadium that AC Milan and Internazionale play at.  It is an impressively large stadium.  Also, the whole walk to the stadium from the metro, there was a wall that was covered with horse and pony paintings and graffiti.  It was confusing until we got to the end and saw that there was a statue of Leonardo's horse at the end (which was gigantic) and a big polo grounds too.

We hopped on a train heading for Florence that afternoon and by 5:00pm we were there.  Immediately we noticed a few things.  Florence likes their leather shops, gelatto, and coffee.  They also have wonderful architecture and a great history.  If you want to hear a lot of Florentine historical names of things that sound impressive, read Dan Brown's Inferno.  I read it last year and it was fun to see the places he was talking about (places like the Ponte Vecchio, Plazzo Vecchio, Vasari Corridor, Plazzo Pitti, Casa di Dante, and the Boboli Gardens).  Also, the first night we were there, we ate at a small restaurant in the city and the food there was soooo good!  Florence knows food.

Our first full day there, we took a day trip to see a cathedral and tower in a small town not too far from Florence.  It's an interesting sight because of the way the tower sits on the ground.  It's kind of crooked.  Of course, I am talking about the small town of Pisa.  And the tower is, you may have guessed already, the leaning tower of Pisa.  That was very cool to see in real life.  That is something you see in movies and it's almost like you don't believe it is real until you actually see it.

We got back to Florence and walked around some more and then saw a really cool festival type thing going on in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.  There were two drum lines and people dressed in royal court type clothes and there were flag throwers all around...  It was cool to see their perfomance.

The second day, we started out and did a wine tour at the Tuscan Wine School.  They taught us the best way to taste wine and we went to two wineries out in the hills of Tuscany.  The vineyards were beautiful and the wine was good too.  They also made olive oil at the two wineries we went to, so we got to taste some fresh olive oils too!

The last day, Rosalie went all around shopping and I went strolling around in the Boboli gardens.  They are impressive to say the least.  They are huge with tons of paths and small little fountains and areas that you wouldn't even know existed if you didn't take all the paths around the gardens.

We then got on one of the high-speed trains to head to Naples.  During the train ride, we got up to at least 298 km/hr (185 mph) fast!  We arrived in Naples and made our way to the hostel.  This hostel is great.  The management is friendly and the place is clean, and the wifi is good.  We went out to get something to eat and stopped in a pizzeria that the hostel manager recommended.  One thing to note about Naples is that pizza was invented here.  So that's what we had and it was good.

Cant wait to see what tomorrow holds.

San Siro stadium in Milan.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Florentine celebration... Might have something to do with Carnivale

Ponte Vecchio, the Vasari Corridor is on top of that.  it connects the two palaces in the city.

French barriques in the cellar at Casa Sola in Tuscany.

Beautiful view from the patio at the Casa Emma winery.

 This statue was placed in the Loggia della Lanza and has been there since the mid 1500s.

The ceiling inside the Palazzo Vecchio.  

One of the stained glass windows in the Duomo in Florence.

Fresco painted on the inside of the Duomo.

Close up of some of the artwork.

 Boboli Gardens inside the walls of the Pitti Palace.

Side view of the Duomo and the back of the tower.