Days 12, 13, 14 Cinque Terre (Monterosso al Mare)

We arrived in Monterosso later in the afternoon after getting on the wrong train.  This was only our 2nd problem with trains.  Not bad, I guess.  When we first got here, I was very excited to see the ocean.  Monterosso is on the Mediterranean and it is beautiful.  The water is so blue and it was very rough; lots of red flags on the beaches.

Monday we decided to go for a hike.  Monterosso is the northern most town of the Cinque Terre.  These are 5 towns that are linked by a walking path.  The path is along the cliffs and is very narrow and steep.  The hike to the next town was supposed to take 1.5 hours.  After being on the hike for only 20 minutes, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and wanted to turn around.  I am allergic to mosquito bites didn't even want to try it again once we had repellent.  So, on to plan B, as my momma says.  Plan B:  go to the beach!!  We rented beach chairs and an umbrella and relaxed.  I quickly went down to the water to see what it was like.  It was so much warmer than the Pacific which is what I am used to.  I didn't even get cold.  I built a rock/sand castle which did not get washed away by the waves.  The waves were very rough.  Not much else was going on.  This was the relaxing part of our vacation.

We took a train to the next town, Vernazza, instead of hiking to it.  It was a lot like the town where we are staying but smaller.  The next day we spent entirely on the beach.  After it rained on us for a while, it finally cleared up and was a very sunny afternoon.  I spent most of the time reading my "Percy Jackson" book.  (Kind of obsessed to finish the book.)  There were a lot of people on the beach as well.  Most of them seemed to be Italians who vacation here.  This is a popular vacation spot for Italians.  Here are some cool pictures of the area and one of me after I ate a whole bowl of blueberries.  Tomorrow we go to the airport in Milan to get ready to fly home Thursday.  Although this has been a wonderful trip, I am looking forward to going home.  I am not so ready to go back to school Monday.  I hope you have enjoyed my blog.  Goodbye until my next adventure!

Day 9 in Pisa

Pisa was one of the places I really wanted to see when we were planning our trip so I was super excited to go to Pisa today.  After a 1 hour train ride, we started walking to find the tower but got lost when we tried to take a bus.  We ended up on the other side of Pisa and had to walk even farther to get to where we were going.  When I first saw the tower, I said "it's small"!  It wasn't nearly as big I had expected.  I was cool, though.  We took a bunch of pictures including the one that everyone takes --->>>>>

I really wanted to go up to the top of the tower so my momma said "let's go!!".  We got tickets to see everything including going to the top of the "Leaning Tower of Pisa".  There were over 250 steps to the top.  The steps were really worn where people had stepped and the staircase was slanted/leaning also.  I lost my balance a little bit walking up the stairs.  We went to the very top...... my momma was scared to death and had to go down immediately.  I was only a little scared.

We also saw the cathedral, the baptistery, and the cemetery.  The baptistery was cool in that it is said to have 'perfect acoustics'.  One of the people working there came in and did a demonstration of how it echooooossss.

Day 8 & 10 in Firenze

Florence!  It is a beautiful city!  We toured the cathedral and climbed to the top of the Duomo.  Duomo just means dome.  There are 463 steps to the top.  I stopped counting about 1/2 way up.  The staircase winds tightly upwards and gets very narrow as you get to the top.  I got a little claustrophobic.  It was hot and stinky.  Luckily we went early in the morning before it got too crowded and too hot.  The first landing allowed us to walk around the inside of the dome where we could look at the paintings on the ceiling.  It is a picture of the Last Judgement.
We climbed even higher and ended up at the very top on the roof.  It was a great view of the whole city.  My momma wasn't nearly as scared on the top of the Duomo as she was on the top of the Tower of Pisa.

We went to a museum today called Galleria dell'Accademia where the most famous Michelangelo sculptures is displayed.  It is called the "David".  Not much to see, in my opinion.  My momma took a picture it when she wasn't supposed.  She didn't know pictures weren't allowed until an old lady said 'no photo'.  So, my momma put her camera away.  But here is the picture ----->>>>>    That lady was kind of mean!  When we came out of the museum, it was pouring down rain.  We quickly went down the block to another museum called Museo di San Marco.  This used to be a monastery of Dominican monks a long time ago.  There are beautiful frescoes in all of the rooms including the cells of the monks.  My momma asked if we could take pictures this time and was told NO.  So we don't have any pictures from this museum.  It was cool though.  Each room was like it had its own chapel in it.    It was still pouring down rain and we had to walk a long way   Luckily we had 2 umbrellas.  We were supposed to go to the Uffizi, another famous museum in Florence, but I did not want to go.  I wanted to play on my iPod Touch.  I was so done with museums.  My momma will just have to see the Uffizi next time.  Oh well!!!

Oh, gelato........ cioccolato and lampone today.  Tasted  just like dark chocolate covered raspberries.  Yummmmm!  I might get to have more before the day is over.  I wonder what flavor next time????

Day 6 & 7 in Venice

We arrived in Venice late in the day on Monday and took a water taxi to our hotel.  It was beautiful!  It was so cool riding in a boat everywhere.  As soon as we got settled in our hotel, we went to see San Marco Plaza.  It was so crowded and there were pigeons everywhere!!!  It was crazy!  We did NOT like it at all!  As we came to find out, later in the day a lot of tour boats and cruise ships let off at San Marco Plaza and that was why there were so many people.

The next day we got up early and went this cool outdoor market called Rialto Market.  This is where the locals go to buy their produce and fish and other things.  It was really neat.  We bought some berries that looked interesting and that we had never seen before.  They weren't very good.  Oh well!  They had every kind of fresh fish you could think of.  There were octopus, squid, live crabs, shrimp (with heads), some kind of flat fish, and a bunch of others.  We wanted to go to Murano next so we had to cross the canal.  We got to ride on a gondola.  The guy at the hotel told us that the gondola was the traditional way that Venetians would get around.  My momma read somewhere that you are supposed to stand while riding on the gondola so that is what we did.  It was very very very very ROCKY and we were a little scared.  I thought that the boat was about to tip over.

When we got to Murano we went to a glass factory and saw a glass blower give a demonstration.  Different minerals give the glass its color.  We walked around Murano for a while, had lunch, then went to a cemetery that is on another island.  It was built in the 1700's.  Really old!!  Oh, and Venice has the worst gelato so far.  It tasted like soft-serve. I did have 3 servings it though hoping it would be better each time.  It wasn't.  Off to Florence tomorrow.

Day 4 & 5 in Assisi

We arrived in Assisi yesterday by train.  The train ride was very short; I thought it would be much longer.  We got here around noon and took a taxi to our hotel.  Assisi is actually up on a hill overlooking Umbria.  The view is beautiful.  Right after we checked in, we went to the Basilica San Francesco.  The basilica is a double basilica with one up and one down below.  They are both working churches.  The style and decor are different from those we saw in Rome.  This one looks more rustic.  We went down below the basilica to St. Francis' tomb.  Next to him were the tombs of 4 of his companions.  After lunch we went to the Basilica of St. Clare.  She was a friend of St. Francis.  Her basilica is almost exactly like St. Francis'.  Her tomb is below the basilica and had some of her relics and St. Francis' relics on display.  Among the relics were her cloaks, a ball of yarn that she made, a shirt made of horse hair, a shoe and cloak of St. Francis, and a book of his.  It was moving to see these things.

Last night after dinner, we went to a musical performance in front of the church of St. Rufino.  Today we went to mass at the Basilica of San Francesco.  It was held in the lower basilica and was in ITALIAN!!  Since I couldn't understand any of the words I had to remember what order the mass is in.  It was really difficult but moving to be there.  I am kind of stuck for what else to say about Assisi.  It is a small town with not much to do but look at churches and buildings.  Tomorrow, I will be going to Venice. I will keep you updated...... Ciao ciao!!!  Like my daddy says 'bene, bene, bene' (or good, good, good!)  Oh, Aunt Donna:  gelato yesterday was cioccolato, crema, and limone.  Today it was baci, cioccolato, and straccitella. 

Day 3 in Rome

The Vatican (the Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica) - AWESOME!!!  We started in the museum where we saw lots of art ---- such as paintings, tapestries, and sculptures.  There was this purple colored rock (red porphyry) which is so rare it is 5x more valuable than gold.  There were many columns and sculptures made of this marble.  The Vatican apparently has most of what is present in the WORLD!!  There was also a cool tapestry that had a picture of Jesus and his eyes seemed like they were looking at you even if you walked all the way past it.  This was done in tapestry hundreds of years ago.  It was amazing!

Everything in Rome, everything in the Vatican seems like it follows 'the bigger, the better'.  The paintings on the walls and ceilings in the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica were humongous!  The dome in the Basilica is so high, it could hold a 40 story building; and the facade of the Basilica is larger than a football field.

This is a picture of us in a courtyard within the Vatican.  In the background is a bronze sculpture of 2 worlds..... the sphere actually rotates on bearings.  Cool!

No gelato yet today but there are still a couple of hours left before I go to bed.  Ciao, ciao!!

Day 2 in Rome

We went to the Colisseum today.  When I walked out of the subway station, it was right there!!  I thought 'it is so cool', 'it is amazing'.  It was more than I thought it would be.  We got into a tour group and went inside.  What I found most interesting about what the tour guide told us was the underground stage, or pre-arena.  This was where the animals were kept that were part of the events during gladiator times.  They used pulleys to raise the animals from the lower level up through trap doors in the floor of the main arena.


The emperors would organize the gladiators events.  The emperors friends and family would sit in VIP seats and everyone else would sit on other levels. The tickets were free to anyone that wanted to come.  The tickets were free to people so that the emperor was popular.  Senators would organize the events sometimes too.  It was kind of like our politicians of today having free events to gain votes.

After the Colisseum, we went to Palatine Hill and the Forum.  We learned the legend of Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome on Palatine Hill.  According to the legend, Romulus and Remus were demigods and sons of Mars.  They were taken away right after they were born and put in the river.  A she-wolf found them and raised them.  Romulus had an argument with Remus about where to build the city.  When they couldn't decide, Romulus stabbed and killed Remus.  Crazy!!!

Gelato again this afternoon.  I was promised I would get gelato every day.  Today, chocolate and straccitella, which is basically chocolate chip.  Yum!