National Lampoon's Italian Vacation

Since my mom's whole side of the family is having "Christmas in July" this weekend, and the theme is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, I thought I'd post about our Italian adventure a couple of weeks ago :)

My aunts, uncles, and cousin had been in Italy for about a week when I met them in Pisa on a Friday morning. When I woke up at 3am in England (way too early for me), it was 50 degrees, and when I landed in Italy it was 85 - heavenly! We headed off to the leaning tower of Pisa, which was beautiful. I have to say though, the rest of Pisa was rather disappointing. Well, there really wasn't much more to Pisa. I'm still glad I got to see it though ;)

Aunt Terri taking the classic leaning tower picture of Uncle Alan :)

On our way back to the villa, we pulled off the road at some small town and had the BEST meal. It was seriously so good, and it was made even better by our hilarious waiter. He was whistling when he came out to greet us, and when he figured out we were Americans he started whistling "Yankee Doodle" - it was hilarious!! (Get it, because we're Yanks?!) We probably spent two hours there enjoying our meal and homemade wine - yum!

My family had rented a villa in San Gimignano, which is in the Tuscany area, so we headed back to "San Jimmy" as my Aunt Mary Jo called it. It is this awesome walled medieval town in the middle of the Italian countryside, with great shopping and lots of wine and Italian leather purses ;)  After some shopping we spent the rest of the evening enjoying the beautiful weather on the villa's patio, complete with wine and chocolates and... Well, you don't need anything else when you have wine and chocolates!

San Gimignano

View from the villa

Nate and Uncle Ted

 Saturday morning we took the train down to Rome (after running into a family from Carroll, Iowa when we were dropping off the rental car - small world, huh?!) and explored a little bit. It was nice because we'd all seen the main sights in Rome, so we got to soak up the environment and culture (and food and wine). We had another amazingly long meal near Piazza Navona, with another great waitress - the food was so much better this time around!

The aunts and uncles on the train to Rome, keeping it classy with champagne ;) 

Piazza Navona

Pantheon

Nate: "Look, my belly is as big as Uncle Al's!"

Trevi Fountain at night

Spanish Steps...with the super annoying guys trying to give sell you roses

Sunday we walked to Vatican City for Mass, and afterwards we heard mention of the Pope possibly speaking from his apartment window, and sure enough we heard him! We ran over and there he was, giving his blessing - in like 7 languages! It was so overwhelming to see him, we weren't expecting it at all.

Our view on the walk to Vatican City

Alan, MJ, Terri, and Ted in the Vatican

Pope Benedict

Beautiful

Our last dinner, with another great waiter!

Before I left Monday we explored the ruins and the Coliseum area. There were these guys around the Coliseum who were selling cheap stuff (like umbrellas, sunglasses, etc). My favorite part of the day was eating gelato and watching the Rome Police chase those guys out of the Coliseum area. It was hilarious - the guy would run around the gelato stand, and the police would chase him in their car, so the policeman was essentially doing donuts around the stand! I wish I would have taken a video, maybe it's one of those things you had to be there for ;)

It was such a fun weekend, I can't believe I got to meet up with my family in Italy! Only thing missing was Thomas...I might have stayed in Italy if he wasn't waiting for me at home :)

When in Rome!

October 15 - 17

"When in Rome!" was our cheesy and overused phrase during our three days in Rome. I usually applied it to getting gelato...When in Rome, do as the Romans do, and eat gelato four times a day! :) Thomas' favorite use of the saying was "When in Rome, try every new beer we can get our hands on!" Needless to say, we both had a great time in Rome.

Anyhoo, Rome was spectacular, everything about it was just amazing. It's incredible to think about all the history there. I feel like you could point to practically any building in the city and it will have some sort of historical significance, probably from thousands of years ago.

On Friday we decided to start by heading to Vatican City since my handy-dandy tour guide said it was absolutely not a good idea to go on Saturdays because of the massive amounts of tourists. I'd seen plenty of pictures of St. Peter's Square and the Vatican, but to actually be there was pretty humbling. To think that you could be walking the same path as Michelangelo or any number of Popes from the past is mind-boggling.

Piazza San Pietro

Thomas and I in front of St. Peter's Basilica

We wandered around Piazza San Pietro, walked through the grotto in St. Peter's Basilica where we saw the tomb of Pope John Paul II, marveled at the inside of St. Peter's Basilica, walked through the Vatican Museum - so much neat and historical stuff in there, including a real live (well not so alive) mummy - and ended in the Sistine Chapel. Walking to the Sistine Chapel was almost as astounding as the actual chapel (but not quite). All of the walls and ceiling were decorated and painted so ornately, it's hard to imagine how much time and effort went into all of that.

Thomas with St. Peter's Basilica in the background :)

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican Museum - this used to be some Emperor's bath tub (supposedly for his wife) and she would always bathe in donkey's milk!

On the way to the Sistine Chapel

We weren't supposed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, but I snuck this blurry one of the Creation painting ;)

Saturday we decided to get passes for one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours. We figured it'd be a good way to get ourselves oriented with the city, plus the amount of stuff we still wanted to see was a little overwhelming. We took one whole loop around the city on the bus and listened to their tidbits on the headphones, then we got off and ended up walking to everything for the rest of the day - everything ended up being pretty close to each other so it would've been a waste of time to get on and off the bus for every site. We managed to hit the Altar of the Fatherland (where their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located), Piazza Venezia. Trevi Fountain, the Piazza di Spagna with the Spanish Steps, Ancient Rome and the Roman Forums, the Colosseum, and many more piazzas, statues, fountains, and obelisks. 

Altar of the Fatherland (in the foreground). The building in the background is the Palazzo Venezia

Trevi Fountain

After we threw our coins in the Trevi Fountain

Me on the Spanish Steps

Roman Forums

Inside the Colosseum - there were tons of rooms/corridors under where the floor was!

Outside of the Colosseum

Sunday we just bummed around Rome and saw some things we didn't get to on Saturday, like the Piazza del Popolo (my favorite thing to say that day), Church of the Sacred Heart (there was a Museum of Purgatory in that church - creepy, but interesting), Castel Sant'Angelo, and the Altar of Peace. We went back to Vatican City and attended Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, which was pretty amazing. Oh yeah, we also managed to squeeze in lunch at Hard Rock Cafe Rome - we were craving a good American burger!! :)

Castel Sant'Angelo

Church of the Sacred Heart

This is where the huge Altar of Peace is located  - apparently the Italians hate this building because it's too modern (which I can understand) - they call it a "Texas gas station" :)

Piazza del Popolo - second oldest obelisk in Rome!

Tiber River

I have to say, the weather we had in Rome was amazing. It was cold, but sunny and beautiful skies - we really couldn't have asked for anything better. We only had about an hour of rain on Saturday afternoon, but we love rain so we didn't mind :) We're so glad we got to see so much in Rome, but we already know of things we want to see when we go back again - like the Roman Catacombs and seeing Pope Benedict XVI! 

Italy - Venice

October 13-14, 2010

We left Greece feeling a little discouraged - while we were so glad we got to go and see all the history, it wasn't quite what we expected. We were afraid that the rest of Europe might not live up to our expectations...until we got to Venice. Venice was amazing. We had taken a 30+ hour ferry ride to get there, sleeping on the floor both nights on the boat, and that is bound to make a cranky Courtney when we arrived in Venice at 7:30am. As soon as we stepped off the boat though, we could tell we were going to love it - we didn't even want to stop exploring to take a nap!

Passing the time on the ferry - we played a lot of cards! 

We got lost trying to get to St. Mark's Square (what else is new), but we didn't mind because we got to see "real-life Venice". It was trash collection day there but there are no cars in Venice, therefore no garbage trucks. So all the residents put out their trash on the street in the morning, and the garbage collectors come through with their big carts on wheels to throw all the trash bags in. I thought it was interesting to see how they adapted an everyday task to their car-less way of living :)

Cute little sidewalk cafe in Venice

We finally made our way to Piazza San Marco and it was well worth the walk! 

Entrance to the city - public executions used to occur between the columns!

St. Mark's Basilica

We wandered around the square and then decided we'd try to find our hotel so I could drop off my annoying little suitcase (nothing screams tourist more than my little suitcase rolling down the street behind me!). We took the awesome water bus to the island of Lido, which is right off of Venice and where our hotel was located. We stepped off of the water bus at Lido and could see our hotel from there!! We were so excited because we have had some serious problems finding our hotels in the past two weeks (we've literally spent hours trying to find them), so it was the highlight of our day to find it :)

Our lovely hotel 

On the island of Lido - it was coooold!

Bikes everywhere!!

It was a cute little hotel, and they let us check in at 11am, which was so helpful because we were in desperate need of freshening up! We wandered around the pretty island of Lido for a bit and then headed back to Venice to explore some more. We took the water bus down the Grand Canal, and stopped at the end for our first Italian meal, and our first taste of gelato (definitely not our last taste though!). 

Gondolas on the Grand Canal

Super excited for gelato!!!

On the Grand Canal

We got to see the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, and go inside St. Mark's Basilica. Everywhere we looked was so beautiful, I took so many pictures! Venice has been my dream vacation destination for a while now, and the fact that I actually got to go there blows my mind! 

Rialto Bridge

Bridge of Sighs

Inside St. Mark's Basilica

Inside St. Mark's Basilica

At the end of the day we tried to find the Jewish Ghetto (the first ghetto in the world apparently!), and we found some of the buildings, but we couldn't find any of the five synagogues before it got dark :( But while walking around we did enjoy the dogs that were everywhere! In Greece there were a lot of stray dogs, but in Venice there were so many dogs with owners (which we liked to see), and they were welcome everywhere - cafes, hotels, boats, anywhere! 

Buildings from the Jewish Ghetto

The water came right up onto the sidewalk here!

Yum!!

We wrapped up the night by buying me a sweet Venice t-shirt (I couldn't resist, I loved that place) and headed off for Rome in the morning!