Oct 23, 2005 - rome rocks

i(nat) knew previously that rome was one of my favorite cities, and it still is, but it's now tying very closely with some others. spent an entire day at the vatican and the night at piazza navona-a gorgeous square you have to see at night. really good food, music, artists, fountains... met a guy from pasadena who owned a restaurant there and got (really good) italy champagne on the house! visited the colosseum, the roman forum, the pantheon, the trevi fountain, piazza la spagna (the spanish steps are here) and villa borghese(nat took a...

Oct 19, 2005 - Rainy Roma

Hey, we're about to leave Roma. Lots of rain, but we figure the cool and clean air, though wet, is superior to the summer heat and smog. Puddles and all, the ruins are so cooool. We were walking along on the same basalt cobbles as Caesar, Marc Antony, Caligula, etc. The Forum was buried for a thousand years or so before they dug it back up in the 1800s and found the roads intact...Rome is crazy. The drivers expect pedestrians to fend for themselves, and they look at you as though you are rude or stupid if you wait for them to slow down. So,...

Oct 14, 2005 - Roma

Eccoci a Roma, c'è il sole ed il tempo è come al solito mite, niente più grattacieli, la via Appia è intasata, Lapo è ricoverato e ammette di essere stato un cretino, ci sono i tagli allo spettacolo e il film di Benigni in uscita, tutto è fantastico, noi siamo divorati dal jet lag e non vediamo l'ora di rivedervi tutti... per poi ripartire. Grazie a tutti che ci tenete così tanta compagnia. Baci A&F

Oct 11, 2005 - Uffizi

I had a few hours this morning and afternoon before my train to Rome to go to the much-touted Uffizi gallery here in Florence. I got up early to see if reception was able to reserve a ticket for me so that I wouldn't have to wait in line, but no such luck. There are so many tourists here in October, I would not want to come anywhere near this city in the middle of the summer! They had this little neon sign outside the door saying the wait was 2 hours minimum, 3 hours maximum, and I just about turned around right there but figured I'd give...

Sep 30, 2005 - Contiki - Florence to Rome

Day 11 - Florence to Rome From Jess's point of view, the next few days were to be her highlight. But by this time everyone was pretty knackered, so it was a lot of sleep on the bus. However, we did arive in Rome mid afternoon, and managed an unofficial walking tour. Emma isn't a licensed Italian guide (4 years study!) so we hid in the small streets for a speil, then met again after each stop. So we did some stuff Jess had planned then and there - Pantheon, Spannish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and we also did a night bus tour after tea. We had an...

Sep 29, 2005 - Vatican City

Today I went to the Vatican city. It was amazing how many people were there. It is the largest church in the world and it was really hard to take it all in. The popes are all buried underneath the church and we were able to view the tombs. Inside it was so big it took 45 minutes just to walk around. There were a lot of people inside but I know it gets worse on sundays when people are able to see the Pope. It was really hard for me to understand why so much money was spent on a church but thats just another life question. Then I went to the...

Sep 26, 2005 - Rome

.... text to follow when we have a chance to get caught up...this travelling is keeping us pretty busy!! For now, enjoy the photos.... www.carlhenderson.ca www.imagestoframe.com

Sep 24, 2005 - Italy

Hi all, Love Rome... Caught boat from Split to Ancona and caught train to Rome. Have been to St Peters, vatican city, Trevi fountain, spanish steps, colloseum etc. have walked our feet off. Food and vino just bella. Having the best time. See you soon. Sorry to hear about the eagles 4 point loss to sydney. Good to hear Ben Cousins has a browlow. Shocked to hear the bulldogs got home and won GF. Love to all Deb and Frank

Sep 24, 2005 - J'adore Italia!!!!

Italy...Italia!!! Where do I begin? Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was to get to this country. I was bouncing off the walls by the time we landed. Our first stop was Florence. We walked around the city and saw most of the sights. The next day we got up and headed to Pistoia. That would be an adventure in itself. We caught a 10 a.m. train to get us into Pistoia around 11. We walked around the city, ate some pizza and waited for our 12:15 bus to take us to the top of the mountain where some of my relatives from the states were...

Sep 23, 2005 - The hoards in Rome

Damn there are a lot of people in Rome. Our trip to the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, and the Trevi fountain were rife with other tourists, but there was nothing like the Vatican! We got there to go to the Vatican museum and to see St. Peter's Basilica to find that about 10,000 of our closest friends had chosen the exact same time to do so. After some investigations by myself and Ed, we determined that we were approxiamtely 3-4 hours from the museum entrance and it was only open for about another 3 hours. Second choice, we headed to...

Sep 17, 2005 - Rome

Well been ages since a last update and I'm so far behind as we've been in Greece sunbathing for a few days now and I'm still not even through Italy! After Pisa we headed to Cinque Terra where we got a little apartment in Vernazza (one of the tiny villages) and although it was pricey we did stay on budget since we were able to cook our own meals! Woooohooo! You have no idea how much you miss cooking when you can't do it. Cinque Terra was wonderful and lived up to all it's expectations that we had for it from other's stories. Five tiny little...

Sep 12, 2005 - ROME!!!

Only a half day of travelling to get to Rome. Arrived in the afternoon. It was beautiful. Such hot weather. A lovely change from the rain. So we set up camp, sweating away then lay in the sun for a little and tried to catch up on our diaries. The group went into town and Nat (our tour manager) showed us some little sight seeing spots. The Spanish Steps. Its kind fo weird they dont actually have an special story about them other than the firstMcDonalds in Rome named them the Spanish Steps so people knew where McDonalds was!!!! Here goes my...