Italy

Now presenting: a 5 day, 3 city tour of Italy

Who: My father [Wayne] and myself

Where: Rome, Florence, and Venice

When: April 13-18, 2009

Main activities: Vatican City, Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, The Roman Forum, Spanish Steps, shopping, Piazza Navona, Florence and Venice.

Deanna and I split up after Amsterdam. She flew to Germany to see her sister and her nieces, I flew to Rome to meet my dad for a 5 day sabbatical. It was a great trip with awesome food and even better company :) As it says at the top of the page, we saw all the great historical landmarks that are recommended by every blog, list, and book written about the city. 

Wayne and I in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City

Days 1 & 2

Rome

We toured around Rome and visited all of these famous places for the first two days. I feel like most people will be familiar with these attractions so I will just post lots of pictures instead of explaining each place in detail.

We tossed coins in the Trevi Fountain...

climbed the Spanish Steps...

ate some authentic [and yummy] gelato...

 listened to the street musicians and had lunch in the Piazza Navona...

visited the Partheon...

toured the Roman Forum...

watched the sunset on Vatican City over the river...

and consumed all sorts of delicious food and wine.

We really enjoyed our selves during our time in Rome. We had a fantastic shopping trip somewhere in there too :) 

I can't remember where we stayed

but knowing my dad it was probably at the Mariott lol 

Day 3

Vatican City

Easter Sunday we went to Vatican City and took a great tour of the areas open to the public for viewing. I'm not Catholic, but I did buy a beautiful blue beaded Rosary from one of the vendors outside the square and keep it in my car.

[With my eyes closed] in St. Peter's Square

Sculptures on the Vatican Art Walk in the gardens

A portion of Raphael's The School of Athens

Leonardo Da Vinci's Sistine Chapel

The Vatican Guards

I read the Da Vinci Code but not Angels and Demons which takes place in Vatican City -I did see the movie though- but I wasn't familiar enough with the details to apply all of the symbolism from the movie to real life. Our tour guide did a great job explaining the significance of each structure and symbol in the city. If you ever go, I would recommend hiring a professional to walk you through the history for a better understanding of how the Pope's headquarters operates. 

It's worth it!

Day 4

On the fourth day we hit the road! (actually, we hopped the train)...

We ate breakfast in Rome,

lunch in Florence

and had dinner in Venice.

Florence 

From the train, the archway into the Mercato Nuovo where we did much shopping

Thanks dad :)

Il Porcellino in the Mercato Nuovo, who's nose is rubbed by visitors for luck.

There are about 20 copies of this statue around the world, including one on campus here in Fayetteville!

[It's in front of the yellow house that used to be Tri Sigma on Maple]

Dad and I in Florence

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

We didn't spend much time in Florence but we did get to shop in the market place, eat a hearty lunch, and do some light exploring before catching the late train to Venice. 

Just popped in for the day to see what it was like.

It was very clean and the people were friendly, 

I would definitely go back some day.

Venice 

Venice is made up of 117 small islands and connected by over 400 bridges. I heard one time that it was sinking so I had better go see it before there was nothing to see. It has been described as the most beautiful city ever built by man and the most romantic location in Europe. We stayed here for one day, two nights then headed back to Rome to fly 'home'. 

I returned to Valencia and my dad went home to KC

Example of the canal

Logistic operations here all work off of these small boats

The gondola man

Dad and I in Venice

Having lunch outside St. Mark's Cathedral in San Marcos Square

In the square. 

Venice also had a neat market to shop for keepsakes. I bought a beautiful Carnival mask that I'm actually afraid to bring to Arkansas because I don't want to have it broken on accident. I don't have a picture of my exact mask but the photo below shows how many options there were in this market area.

Carnival Masks

I went back to Valencia after this. It was the best spring break ever!! 

About 3 weeks around from 

Valencia, Spain > Switzerland > Prague > Amsterdam > Italy > Spain

There are still a million places I want to go in Europe, but I was very happy to share my stories for where I have visited so far. 

I'm going to keep the next few posts a little shorter since these were all so long. 

[but they are the most interesting ones until this summer !!!!!!!]

Thanks for reading :)