Italia

I don’t even know where to begin. Italy was fantastic! We went to Rome, Florence, and Venice. Italy, unlike the other parts of Europe that I visited actually believes in air conditioning. Well, in most places.

We took a night train from Vienna to Rome Monday night, and spent Tuesday and Wednesday there. In those two days we visited the Vatican City, Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, and a lot of other stuff. I also got to see the Trevi Fountain and the Coliseum at night. It was beautiful. St. Peter’s is HUGE. They have stones in the middle that mark it’s size compared to other churches in the world, and they don’t even compare. The Vatican was rough because we got off the train, changed clothes, and headed out. So we were all pooped and didn’t want to do anything, but we made the most of it that we could. I will say that my favorite place in Rome was the Coliseum. We walked out of the subway, and it was right in front of us. It was beautiful. (I’ll post pictures soon I promise)

On Thursday we took a morning train to Florence. We arrived at our hotel, and like usual our hotel rooms weren’t ready so we stored our luggage, changed, and headed out. We started with the Medici Chapels, which are the people that basically founded Florence, then we had a walking tour of Florence. It lasted roughly 3 hours so needless to say we were a little tired… After the tour we checked into our rooms, rested for a little while and headed out to the market. It was so cool! I bought many souvenirs for others and myself of course and even used my haggling skills I inherited from my mother. ;) The Italy versus Germany soccer game was that night too so we stopped by one of the biggest showings of it in the city, then I headed back to the hotel to catch up on some journaling and slept. The next day we headed out to a couple of museums and had a lot of free time.

Saturday morning we were headed to Venice. This was my first sighting of the ocean since we flew over it coming to London. It was spectacular. The entire city is a group of islands, but in the part that we were in they had filled in some of the canals to make it possible for pedestrians to walk around. We again had a walking tour of the city, went to the Doge’s Palace, San Marcos church and had free time. It was a blast! Our last official thing to journal about was the Doge’s Palace, and even then it was hard to keep journaling. Out of all the cities, Venice was definitely the hottest because of the humidity. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much in my life. But Venice was definitely my favorite. The people were nicer, there weren’t any cars or motorcycles to run me over, and it was just cool. I mean, the gondola ride may make me biased but I had such a great time.

Each city had it’s own thing that I loved. I loved the things I saw in Rome. I loved the markets in Florence, and I loved the people in Venice. This week has been a long one, but a great one. Today I’m hanging out in Vienna, then I’m headed home tomorrow. I can’t believe this trip is already over. It’s been such a blessing. And since this blog is already so long, I write another one when I get home.

Peace.