A Florentine Return

In the morning it was time to bid adieu to Rome and head towards Florence.  This would be my second time in that city.  Since I didn't do a blog post for that trip, I am going to use some pictures from then for illistration since I didn't retake any of the places I had been save one.

When we arrived in Florence we had to go into a part of town I hadn't been with Sam, so we were reliant on the map.  The hostel proved fairly easy to find, so that's good.  It was a really nice place with a sauna and pool and laundry and even club in the basement!  It was also one of the cheaper places we had stayed in Italy and one of the most fun.  When we settled into our room we went out on the town.  It was overcast and had been drizzling off and on, so I took the umbrella and off we went to see the sites.

Since I had been there before, I decided the first day could be me taking Braden to all of the places I really liked while I was there the first time so we didn't have to waste a day redoing things later.  So, we went to the Duomo:

The Ponte Vecchio:

The Piazza Signora:

After seeing those fun places, we went to the market streets and walked around there looking at souvaniers for Braden (I already had mine).  I was so mad while I was there because they are opening a Hard Rock there in July!  After I am there twice in one year (and am not likely to go back in the next 20 years) they finally decide to open a Hard Rock....lame.  Today, I found out they are also opening one in Hamburg, Germany...so I better still be around for that one!  The hostel had a pool, so I went to H&M and got some cheap-o European swim trunks...they're short, but blue and cute :)

After a day of site-seeing we went back to the hostel and relaxed for the night.

The next morning we were off to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the "finest museums in the Western World".  I was SUPER excited to see The Birth of Venus by Bernini, and when I saw it, I was not disappointed.  For those of you unfamiliar, here is a pic of it from the web:

After that fun experience (and a lot of statues later), we went to the Piazza Michalangelo and saw some fanastic views of the city.  These are pictures from my time there with Braden:

And these are from being up there at night with Sam:



Also up on that hill is San Miniato al Monte that I only went to with Sam, here are some pics of that:


After reaching the bottom of the hill, we saw Santa Croce.  We didn't go inside, but I did with Sam:

From there we went to the inside of the Duomo:



I went to the cupola with Sam and his roommate Brandon in November:


After that was the day trip to Pisa (to be addressed in the next post).  Sorry this was mostly pictures, but there isn't a lot to say beyond the explanation of the pictures.  We didn't really do anything except site see, which is fine!  It was also a very cheap city because we only at sandwiches and paid for admission to only the Uffizi.

The Colosseum and Ancient Rome

Today was the day that we were finally going to do the thing I was most excited to do, THE COLOSSEUM!!!  However, that was about the only thing planned for that day, so we had no real rush that morning, and we hadn't gotten to sleep in for a while, so we did and it was GREAT!  After having another breakfast of croissants and oj at the B&B, we got out things together and went to the Palentine Hill, one of Rome's 7 hills and the one where the ancient city stands.  It was filled with ruins just as famous as Pompeii.  We walked along the grounds for a while, this time deciding against the audio guide.  However, I have no idea what the significance of a lot of the things we saw are...but I know they were old...ancient even.

After the hill we walked to a wonderful park that had a great panaramic view of Ancient Rome:

That park led to the Roman Forum and the temple of Jupiter (Zues).  This was another great place to have lunch, so we sat down one more time with our sandwiches.  Braden then brought up an interesting point about people who come to these places and take all these pictures and don't even know their significance or why they are important to visit.  Unaware of anything except that people should go there when in Rome...I thought that was a really good point and an interesting one to ponder.

 Temple of Jupiter

Roman Forum

The more that Braden and I have been travelling in Europe, the more we are convinced that everyone knows enough English for simple transactions...and we wonder at whether or not people really NEED to learn a second language if they are blessed with the luck of being a native English speaker...except maybe Spanish (esp for those in the south...or Austin, MN according to Steven).

Anywho, we left the Roman Forum and continued on to THE COLOSSEUM!!  We got to skip the line because we bought the combo tickets at Palatine Hill, so that was a GREAT tip from the guide book.  When we got inside my camera was almost dead and I was really sad and didn't know how the battery could be so low already.  It wasn't until today (3 days later) looking through my pictures while waiting for a train in Siena, that I noticed I had taken a roughly 20 minute video of our walk from the Roman Forum to the colosseum in my pocket.  FAIL.  Haha, it's fine though.  I got the pictures I needed.

After leaving the colosseum, we headed to Circus Maximus, where the chariot races were held, there wasn't much left and I didn't want to waste the battery on my camera, so I didn't take any pictures.  There are probably some of Braden's I can steal for this post though...

Then we went to the church that hold the Mouth of Truth...you put your hand in its mouth and if it bites your fingers off, you're a liar.  For these pictures, I have to steal Braden's because there was a line and we only used the one camera.

When we got inside, though, we saw a major surprise!  The bones of St. Valentine!!!  We had been wondering where those were for a very long time.  I immediately lit my mom a candle and shot up a prayer for her love life :).

From the church we walked aimlessly around the town toward the Piazza Navona because Braden was in desperate need of a mug that he is collecting from every city.  He, of course, was helpless in this aspect and I had to find everything for him.  I was sad that my camera was on its way out but I managed to see the fountains of Piazza Navona again and we even walked past the Pantheon one last time.  We found him a mug, at the same shop I got my shot glass, and we decided to head home.

Before we could get to the station, though, Braden decided we needed to do the gigantic Il Vittoriano or something like that.  It is huge, white, and has a million or so stairs to the top of it.  I was not a fan of the stairs.  We did it though, and it had some good views of the city.

The trick to it was, that to get to the VERY top, you needed to take an elevator, and that cost like 7 euro, which was ridiculously not worth it.  We have started saying this thing: If St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican is free, then I do not need to pay to see this.  It is a very good way to measure how important spending money can be, and I think that saying will save us some major Euro!

From there, we got onto the bus home and that night played a rousing game of Monopoly...that I actually lost.  We played to the point that I actually had everything mortgaged and could not pay Braden back.  Congrats to him, I'm a much better loser than he is :).

That was our last night in Rome.  It was fun and I am so glad we did it.  Our next adventure was my return to Florence :)

Pompeii: the City Frozen in Time

It was very difficult to get up in the morning, but we knew that we had to get on an early train because all of the guides said that walking through the ruins of Pompeii would take hours and the last entrance was at 5, so we needed to get there by at least 11.  We got to the train station in the nick of time, sure that we were not going to make it.  Fortunately, we did.  The train was one of the regional ones, so not as nice as the one that had brought us to Rome from Venice, but it was still nice enough and we settled in for some napping before we arrived.  The train ride seemed very short to me, and before I knew it we were in Naples.  I had heard, I think from "Eat, Pray, Love", that Naples was the pick pocket capital of the world, so we were heavily on our guard.  (Later, we learned the top two cities were acctually Barcelona and Rome...whoops!).  We found the train line that we needed to take to get to Pompeii, Circumvesivio, and bought our tickets (that line is not covered by the Eurail Pass).  They were only about 2 euro so it wasn't too bad.

The tracks had a lot of cig butts in it, it was kinda disgusting, but we were super pumped to get to Pompeii, so we didn't really pay it much mind.  We got onto the train, along with everyone and their mom, and luckily found some spots next to each other.  There was a family who had to sit in three different sections, and I kinda felt bad for them, but the dad had a camcorder and was a little obnoxious with it, so soon I stopped caring about them.  Unfortunately, the seat we found had spray paint on the outside window, so we couldn't really see very much.  We did, however, spot Mt. Vesuvius!  The ride was a little more than a half hour and it was pretty uneventful.

When we got to Pompeii, we got out and walked where the signs pointed us.  Along the road were some stands selling stuff to tourists (like there always are) and on them were the BIGGEST lemons I have ever seen.  They looked like grapefruit..only lemons.  We decided to buy some Lemonade on the way back to the train station.  About a 2 minute walk led us to the entrance where we bought our tickets, and I thought we probably wanted an audio guide as well.  Little did I know there was a free booklet explaining everything...but, the audio guide was fine.

Walking the path up to the beginning of the city (that was a thriving city 2,000 years ago) we had spectacular views of the destructive Mt. Vesuvius.

We walked all along throughout the city seeing everything from temples, public offices and sports arenas.  I think it is best to explain the city through pictures.  First, a brief history for those of you that don't know what happened in Pompeii.  In 79 AD Mt. Vesuvius, a volcano that is still active today, erupted like major big time.  It swallowed the city in ash the first day and on the second day, those that hadn't died from the toxic chemicals and tried to hide in their houses were covered with molten lava.  The way in which the volcano erupted caused the bodies and indeed the entire town to be preserved exactily the way it was at the time of the explosion.  So, when it was excavated, they found how people in ancient Rome would have lived 2,000 years ago with actual examples.  It's really very cool because it's not just an excavation site, it is like walking through a dead town.  The buildings are still there, the roads are where they were and even some of the people (in body casts made from plaster of paris) are around.  It's kinda the coolest historical place I've been.  I'll explain stuff in more detail through some pictures.

 This was the temple of Jupiter (Zeus) and it was rather large and right in the middle of the main square.

 This is one of the body casts surrounded by the pots and other random stuff they have found around the site. 

 This is the Villa of Mysteries and this is why it is called that.  This fresco is thousands of years old and they (the smart people) have no idea what it signifies.  Villa is something that refers to any building outside of the city walls....something you didn't know I'll bet :)

 According to Braden (one of the smart guys) this is one of the most famous mosaics in the world.  He says it was on his history book in 6th grade...I, of course, had never heard of it.  GO WOLVES.  It portrays Alexander the Great fighting some Persian guy...who is famous...that I just now forgot.  I'll remember at some inopportune time in the future.

This is a picture of Braden!!  He is standing in the theatre of the town of Pompeii.  It was really big and impressive and they could cover it with stuff.......COOL STUFF!!!

Well....so we left Pompeii and decided to hang out for a while in Naples.  On the way back into Italy's 3rd largest city, we saw other sides of the volcano and it was SO cool.  When we got into town, I went to the tourist office and asked for a good place for some pizza, it having been invented in Naples.  He showed me on a map where to go and off we went into the big city.  There were a ton of people selling things on the streets and sidewalks outside the main train station, but that was normal.  As we kept walking, though, we saw how dirty and disgusting the town really was.  It was almost embarrasing.  I took some pictures of the town:

This is not just like one area that I took a picture of, this was the entire town.  Every street we saw...it was overly creepy and dirty.  When we found the pizza joint, it was closed....really good advice tourist office.  Every consecutive pizzeria we found was also closed...so we went back to the train station and had some pizza there and waited for the first train out of Naples.

When we got back to Rome it was raining pretty heavily and there was some thunder and lightning.  We decided it was better to not do anymore site seeing and just sit in and make some pasta, which we did.  It was delicious :)

Random Roma

After leaving Castel Sant'Angelo, Braden and I walked over to Piazza Navona. It was not right on any main streets, so it took me a while to find it, but it was very cool.  We had lunch in front of one of the fountains!

After that little excursion we decided to find the Pantheon.  This is the largest free standing cement structure in the world.  Architects today have no idea how or why this is still standing after thousands of years, but it is!  It also is now a church.  It has the tombs of Raphael and Vittorio Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy.

This was a really cool place, but we had had a very full day!  We were ready to just relax back at the B&B and write some blogs and catch up with some people.

The next day was a day of lots of walking around and seeing the sites.  I could go into a lengthy explanation of what they all are and what they mean and why they are famous and who made them...but that'd be a bit much I think.  Instead, if you are interested in something in particular you can do some research, that is what Google is for anyway.

So, in the morning, Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.  Officially a part of the Vatican City.  Very pretty (not a candle to St. Peter's). Tomb of Bernini.

While in the Basilica, we decided to change our plans a little and see all of the sites that day and go to Pompeii and Naples the next day.  So, our next stop was going to be the Trevi Fountain.

 I had to throw some money it to ensure that I come back to Rome (I guess they make like 3,000 Euro a day)

That was really pretty.  This was also the day that Rome was bombarded by tons of Welsh people.  They were honestly everywhere we went in their rugby jerseys with Welsh flags for kilts.  I took a picture, I am not kidding...everywhere.

Anyway, after the wonderful fountain we went to the Spanish Steps and walked up those.  It was rough.  I have never in my life done so many steps consecutively.  Every day it's like 1,000 or more...ugh.  I think this is one of those places that is prettier in the summer.  It was just a bunch of stairs...

We then walked through the "expensive" area of Rome that included some more Armani and co.  After that we found Piazza del Popolo and had a sandwich there.

We walked up to the park area then and had another great view of the city (Rome has many).

We went back to the hotel for a nap and then went back out into the excitement of the city at night for some different views of our favorite places.  Our first stop was, of course, The Vatican.

We got back onto the metro and made our way back to Fontana d'Trevi.

That was an end to our random adventure throughout Rome.  All we had left to do now was ancient Rome which we did right after Pompeii, which will be my next post!