Rome, Italy

On May 9th and 10th, we went to Rome, Italy. We took the fast train (actually, we drove our car to the Metro in San Donato, took the subway into the main train station in Milan, and then took the fast train to Rome). After settling into our hotel, we went exploring.

The first thing we encountered on our "things to see in Rome" list was the Pantheon. I don't know what I expected the Pantheon to be, but this wasn't it! It was built in 132 AD as a temple to all of the gods of ancient Rome. Over time, it's use has changed, and it's now a Catholic church.

The interior was very beautiful. This is an example of one of the frescos we saw.
Next it was on to Trevi Fountain. The fountain was completed in 1762. I wanted to take a picture of the whole fountain, but because of the crowds I couldn't stand far enough away to have a clear view of it. Scott and I both threw a coin into the fountain, as is tradition. Interesting fact: about 3000 euros a day are collected from the fountain. The money is used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy.
After the Trevi Fountain, it was off to the Hard Rock Cafe. We had to get Scott his 3rd European Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt! And enjoy their food and unlimited refills on soft drinks (the only place I know of in Italy that does this).

From the Hard Rock Cafe, it was easier to take the back way to the Spanish Steps. This meant we didn't have to climb the 138 steps, but we did climb a hill to get to the top. Of course, Scott had to run down the steps and then run back up so he could say he had climbed the Spanish Steps. Robert and I made do with walking down the 138 steps. That was good enough for us!
The next morning, we headed off to the Colosseum (I think I finally know how to spell that word without spell check). The Colosseum was completed in 80 AD. It could seat 50,000 spectators, and was used for gladiator fights, executions, and mock sea battles, among other things. As you can see from the picture, it's not in the greatest shape. It's been damaged not only by earthquakes, but by people stealing the stone over the centuries. But, it's still pretty impressive.

Here's me standing on a small section of the original marble flooring that still remains.

Here's a picture of the interior of the Colosseum. Unlike the Arena in Verona, the Colosseum isn't usable anymore. There is not any interior seating, and the center floor is missing.

After leaving the Colosseum, we went over to Vatican City. As we waited in line to get in to St. Peter's Basilica, we saw one of the Papal Swiss Guards. They have the most unique uniforms I've ever seen!

The Basilica of St. Peter was enormous! I don't think I have ever been in a larger church. I've read it can hold 60,000 people! That's a lot of people in a church. I didn't take any pictures inside. It was dark, and my camera doesn't like the dark.

From St. Peter's we walked to the Vatican Museum. Unfortunately for me, the museum was very crowded. Very, very crowded. So I didn't really enjoy the museum. My goal soon became getting through the museum so I could see the Sistine Chapel, which was at the end. Of course.

This isn't the Sistine Chapel, but it was a very beautiful dome we saw along the way. We were amazed at how bright and crisp the colors still are.

I don't have any pictures of the Sistine Chapel, as photos weren't allowed. But, believe me, it was amazing. Michelangelo painted over 3700 square feet of the chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512. And he didn't just paint that ceiling white! He painted frescos that are still wondrous to look at.

After leaving the Vatican Museum, we headed back to our hotel, picked up our luggage, and headed to the train station for the trip back to Milan.

It was a short trip to Rome. I know there was a lot we missed, but we saw what we wanted to see, and that's what matters.

Stresa, Isola dei Pescatori, and Isola Bella, Italy

Kimberly is here visiting (hurray!), so on April 23rd we drove to the town of Stresa, which is located on Lake Maggiore. Stresa was a very pretty town, but I didn't take any pictures of it. All of my pictures are of two of the islands we visited.

We took a city motor boat service out to the islands. I was amazed at how many people would come pouring out of those boats! It was like a clown car without the overcrowded feeling.

Our first stop was the Isola dei Pescatori, which is a working fishing village. With lots of stalls selling stuff to tourists! I love those stalls!

Here are Kimberly and Scott standing at the water's edge. I'm not quite sure why they are posed that way...
Next we took the motor boat to Isola Bella. This is a picture of the palace gardens.
This is a picture of the palace - Palazzo Borromeo - built in the 1600s.
We enjoyed touring the palace, which was filled with gigantic marble rooms and interesting stone grottos. But the gardens were even more spectacular. So many flowers! Such vibrant colors! I took pictures of some of them. Sadly, I don't know what any of them are!


Can you spot Kimberly behind the bush? Her coat blends right in!
I love the way they shaped this tree.
I love even more this picture of Kimberly and Scott under the same tree.
We were thrilled to see these beautiful white peahens sitting on the lawn.
And then we saw this beautiful peacock perched way up high on a statue. Actually, we heard him first. Peacocks are very loud.
But none of those compared to this beautiful guy - showing off his tail feathers. He must have stood that way for 10 minutes. And what was interesting was that he just kept turning around in circles. He stayed in the same spot the whole time, he just kept rotating. Sadly, none of the peahens were even paying any attention to him! But we sure appreciated the show! We actually saw two different peacocks with their tail feathers out. Talk about our lucky day!

After that, we took the motor boat back to Stresa, where we ate lunch, did some shopping, and had gelato. It was a great day trip, made even better by having Kimberly here.

Bellagio, Italy

On April 19th, I went with a group of four other American ladies to the town of Bellagio, Italy. Our plan was to drive to the city of Como, park the car, and take the ferry to Bellagio. When we got to Como, however, we were having problems finding parking. So DeeAnn, our fearless driver, decided to just drive to Bellagio. The distance between the two towns is 36 kilometers (a little over 22 miles). The roads, however, are narrow and windy, which meant the relatively short distance took us 45 minutes to drive! 45 rather nerve-racking minutes, I might add. But we finally made it! And it was well worth the tension!

Since it was already 11:30, we decided to go shopping first. You never know if shops are going to close for a few hours in the afternoon - even in tourist areas. About half the shops in Bellagio closed, so it was good we shopped when we did. Shopping was a workout. This is the view looking back down the steps we climbed to go shopping. And I wasn't even at the top! The shops lined the hill on either side. We found some really fun stuff. I fell in love with a small 3 piece nativity, but it was very expensive, so I was good and left it behind.

After shopping and eating lunch, we wandered around admiring the scenery. We saw so many beautiful flowers, including these, which I have been told are called Banks roses.
We had fun looking at the interesting buildings.
We admired the views looking out across the lake. Too bad my pictures never do it justice.
Bellagio was a beautiful town. It was a lot of fun to explore, and well worth the white knuckle drive!

Venice, Italy

We went to Venice the weekend of April 9th and 10th. We took the train there, and then rode a vaporetto (water bus) to the Piazza San Marco, where our hotel was located. The vaporetti aren't as romantic as a gondola, but they are much cheaper.

We did see a lot of gondolas as we cruised along the Grand Canal to the Piazza. The gondoliers are required to wear striped shirts, black pants, and black close-toed shoes. The traditional flat hats are optional - we didn't see too many of them. We decided not to ride in a gondola for a number of reasons. As I said before, they are expensive - about 100 euros for a ride (which is about $145). Plus (and probably the main reason), Robert and I weren't sure we could get into a gondola without capsizing the thing! And if we did get into the gondola, we weren't sure we would ever make it out again! We didn't ride, but we sure did enjoy watching them.
We made it to the Piazza San Marco and began the hunt for our hotel. We had been instructed to walk through the arch under the Torre dell'Orologio (clock tower). After doing that, we made our way through a number of teeny tiny streets until we found our hotel - the Best Western Hotel Montecarlo (which seemed like a strange name for a hotel in Venice). By the way, the clock tower was completed in 1499. I'm constantly amazed that I've been seeing buildings that are 500 to 1000 years old!
After settling in, we went and got lunch - at the Hard Rock Cafe. So nice to get barbecued ribs! And a milk shake for Scott! And ice in my Coke Light! We bought Scott the obligatory Hard Rock Cafe Venice t-shirt, then headed back to the Piazza. We took an elevator to the top of the Campanile (free standing bell tower) of the Basilica of St. Mark's. Here's a view of the city. You can't even tell there are all sorts of small canals down there.
Here's a view of the five domes of the Basilica of St. Mark's.
Here's a view of one of the bells in the bell tower. We were all glad they no longer ring those bells! I don't think our hearing could have withstood the noise!
Here's a picture of the arch above one of the doors of the Basilica of St. Mark's.
Next we took a vaporetti to the Rialto Bridge. As you can see from the number of people on the bridge, it offers an excellent view of the Grand Canal.
So we took pictures. I love the gondolas. I love how the old buildings are all so different.
The motor boats and vaporetti kind of detract from the beauty of the Grand Canal, but they are sure a lot quicker means of transportation!
I even managed to convince Scott to let me take a picture of him.
One of the coolest things about the Rialto bridge was that while you could view the Grand Canal from either side of the bridge, the interior of the bridge was lined with shops. Lots and lots of amazing shops! Suffice it to say, I had a lot of fun in the shops!

We decided to walk back to the Piazza San Marco, which was interesting. We had a map, but the street names never seemed to match up. Thank goodness someone had taken the time to write "San Marco" with an arrow pointing in the right direction at the end of most of the streets. Who knew I would ever be grateful for graffiti!

The next day we took a vaporetto to the island of Murano. Murano has been the home to Venetian glassmakers since 1291. When I found out we were moving to Italy, one of the things I wanted to do was go to Murano and see a glass blowing demonstration. We had to spend 15 minutes listening to a high pressure salesman ("You only need to spend 450 euros, and we will ship to America for free"), but then we got to see the demonstration. We watched this blob of glass....

... be transformed into this beautiful vase in about 5 minutes.
We had to buy a couple of things. I have a small collection of eggs, so this was calling to me! It's hard to get a picture that shows how pretty it is.
We also bought this vase. Robert actually picked it out. He loved the color (which is a deep, dark, rich reddish/maroon) and the shape. Those were our two treasures.
Venice was amazing! Such a beautiful and unique city. I am so glad we got to visit - even Scott admitted that was one of the places he wanted to see while in Italy.

Verona, Italy

On March 12th, Robert, Scott, and I rode the train to Verona, Italy. We thought it was supposed to be the high speed train, be we don't think it ever got up to anywhere near 300kmh. Maybe we'll get to ride a real high speed train when we go to Rome in May. I enjoyed the train, while Robert and Scott weren't as thrilled with it. I thought it was a very relaxing, stress free way to get to Verona.

When we got to Verona, the first thing we went to see was their Arena (Colosseum). It's the third largest Roman arena still standing, although much of the outer wall was destroyed by an earthquake in 1117. Scott took this picture from the top of the arena. It's still a pretty impressive arena - considering it was built in AD 30! During the summer, operas are performed here. I've read that the acoustics are so good that the performers don't even need microphones.

Scott took this picture looking out from the top of the arena. I love the narrow streets.
We had hoped to find some fun shops to go into, but alas, the shops we saw were all well out of our price range. We are not the sort of people who shop at Versace and Prada!

We did see this quaint old car. I believe it was a Citreon. I had to take a picture. You just don't see cars like that in Texas!
We eventually made our way to the courtyard containing the "alleged" balcony from "Romeo and Juliet". We joined the crowds of people milling about the tiny courtyard. We read the famous words from "Romeo and Juliet".
We saw the balcony. It's not important that it's actually the balcony of a restored 13th century inn. We all imagined it was really Juliet's balcony

We did not, however, have our pictures taken next to the life size statue of Juliet. Mainly because, in order to have your picture taken next to her statue, it seemed to be a requirement that you had to be cupping Juliet's right breast in your hand! And none of us wanted to do that! Apparently, that was supposed to bring you luck in love. We all decided to take our chances.

After leaving Juliet's courtyard, we walked over to Verona's castle. I didn't include any pictures, because it really wasn't much to look at. Scott did take this pretty picture from a bridge looking over the Adige River.

We enjoyed our time in Verona. It was a pretty city with a lot of history (even if some of it is fictional).

Parma, Italy

On March 8th, I went to Parma, Italy with seven other American women. Only two of us are brave enough to drive in Italy (me being one of them), so we each drove a carload down. It doesn't take much to fill a car here. It was a pretty easy drive to Parma - a straight shot down the highway (or autostrada). Plus it helped that one of the women had gotten the address for a good parking garage, so all I had to do was plug it into my Garmin and I was good to go! May I just say, I do fine in the United States without a Garmin, but I would not want to go anywhere I hadn't been in Italy, without one! It's invaluable.

Parma was a very pretty city. The pictures I took don't do it justice, but I'm including them anyway. This picture is of the river that runs through town. Apparently it dries up during the summer, so I figured I'd better take a picture of it with water!

Apartment buildings in Italy are all very different looking. Some are old and dreary, some remind me of tenements in the inner city, and some are kind of cute. I thought this one fell into that category.

I didn't take any more pictures for a while, because we were too busy shopping. The shopping was great! We walked down a couple of streets full of cute shops. We went into a shop that sold nothing but gloves and socks - so many socks! We also went into a couple of shops that sold fun jewelry, scarves (of course), and other fun accessories. My favorite store was a place called Kiko. They sold make up. The prices were more like Cover Girl prices, but the make up was Italian, so it was cooler! We all loved that store. We never even made it into a few of the stores, because they all closed for lunch at 12:30. So maddening!

We went to a great trattoria for lunch. We got some of their fried bread, which was absolutely delicious! It's heavier and not as sweet tasting as a sopapilla, but it puffs up in the same way. I could have just had that for lunch and been happy! The rest of the meal was just as good - Rick Steves recommended a great place!

After lunch we walked to a beautiful park. One of the ladies who had been their before said we needed to go see the giant teapots. We were all assuming they would be prettily painted giant teapots. We were disappointed. As you can see, they were an ugly gray color, and covered with graffiti! Not at all what we were expecting. (And yes, that is me in another picture. The one I took of the teapot by itself didn't turn out.)

After that, we drove home. It was a great day. So far, Parma has been my second favorite city (after Florence). When Kimberly comes to visit in April, we will definitely be taking a day trip to Parma.