Jun 5, 2005 - Rome, Italy

June 1 to June 6 We arrived in Rome to find the whole city booked up. We had not realized we hit a national holiday where it appeared that everybody in Italy went to Rome. Fortunetly the guy at the train station had one hotel room that he could offer. We had to give him a deposit for the room, then he said we could check the room and if we did not like it he would give us our money back and good luck finding something else. The hotel area seemed a little sketchy but turned out be to a good hotel and a nice area. It was by the university. It...

Jun 5, 2005 - Ancient Rome

The next morning we slept until the maids kicked us out, apparently they had a lot of cleaning to do because the place is booked full for the next week, which is the first of high season. We wished we could just stay at San Fabiano, or else skip Rome and go straight home- we were both fairly tired of traveling and being touristy, and felt so relaxed after the villa we didn’t feel we could handle the manic energy of Rome. Now we know we should have scheduled Rome first, we would have had better weather, smaller crowds, and more energy for...

May 30, 2005 - Florence and Rome

Florence was great. We stayed at hotel Nina Pella and had a great room and finally our own bathroom. That day we visited Brunileschi's dome which is an incredible cathedral and a dome painted like heaven and hell. After that we made our way to Uffizi and Accadema, both are great museums. We saw Michelangelo's David and the Birth of Venus along with alot of other art. We checked out the local night life which wasn't so good. The next day we shopped at the local street markets and hopped a 2 hour train to Rome. First we booked a great hotel...

May 30, 2005 - Train to Rome

Well this is a good one so hold on to something. I left Naples with a girl I had met in the hostel there that was also heading to Rome, so we thought it would be nicer to have someone on the train to talk to on the way. Our train was over 1 hour late but it finally got there so we boarded an old train and headed off to Rome, it had cabin like compartments which held 6 people to each cabin and not much air conditioning. It was a beautiful trip with great scenery which was to take about 2 hours or so, enroute they kept making announcments...

May 29, 2005 - Rome

For my first two days in Rome, the only thought my brain was capable of formulating was "I'm in Rome - Wow!" Pretty much as soon as I stepped off the train at Termini station I felt like a local. I don't know if it was the weather (stinking hot and dusty), the city with its filthy ancient elegance, or the Romans themselves - so laid back and welcoming (yes and flirtatious and vain and fiery too). The food stores were so crammed with delicacies it almost brought tears to my eyes at the thought of what I would be leaving behind all too soon....

May 27, 2005 - Rome

We arrived in Rome by bus. We had planned on taking the train from Naples, but found out 15 minutes before we were due to leave, our train was cancelled. So in some stifling heat and humidity we ran for some buses at the end of the train station. The bus was a bit longer trip than we expected, but we arrived in Rome all the same. Rome is incredibly hot. Someone said the weather was unseasonably warm. I don't know if that is true or not, but its about 30 celsius, which is about 85 degrees farenheit. All we know is both Michael and I are...

May 25, 2005 - To Innsbruck, then Rome

Hi Everyone!! I forgot to mention the other day that when DJ and I were in Rothenburg, we were in a shop and there was a nice dog roaming the store. He was following DJ around because DJ had food in his hand. As soon as DJ said "platz" (I think that was the word, German for "sit"), the dog sat down! Later when the dog was roaming around again, if DJ said "sit", the dog wouldn't sit, just when he said "platz". German dog. :) We took a really nice 30 min bus ride from Fussen, Germany to Reutte, Austria. Very nice small towns nestled at the...

May 24, 2005 - Rome, Italy

As yesterday revolved around roman ruins and historical Rome, we focused today on the Vatican City: St. Peter's Basillica, the vatican museum, and the Sistine chapel. First we waited in the long line for the vatican museum which is an enormous building housing paintings, sculptures, and artifacts. First, we walked through rooms filled with ancient egyptian artifacts - mummified bodies, sarcophaguses, and statues of the egyptian gods. Then we walked through long halls containing roman statues and sculptures. We learned that the romans...

May 23, 2005 - Roman Holiday

Though seething with Bermuda shorted tourists, Rome is everything I expected it to be. Having been founded in 753 B.C., history literally lurks around every single corner. My first day here, I took off on a random stroll as I typically do when stumbling into a new city, down narrow cobbled streets past one monument and ruin then another. But you just can't prepare for the first sight of the Colosseum. Its one of the world's great icons, and it just all of a sudden appeared at the end of a street. So cool, and I've been barely able to stop...

May 23, 2005 - Rome, Italy

Today, we met Claire's mom and sister (Marilynn and Amelia) in Rome. We're all staying at a great hotel right near the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and Trevi fountain. We split up for a while today so that Amelia could visit a couple of places she'd missed the day before, Claire and Marilynn could catch up, and Kristin could catch up on her sleep (after a not so restful night on the train). The Nicholson-O'Hearne family first visited the Victor Emmanuel Monument, which sat in the middle of Roma, that was built to celebrate the 50th...

May 22, 2005 - Roma Adventure

After we ledt Cinque Terre, we headed for Piza to see the leaning tower. We were planning to basically see the tower and get back on the train to head for Rome. Unfortunately, our lay over was only about 20min which didnt give us enough time to see the tower. We got back on the train and headed for Roma. We arrived in Roma around 10:40 since our train was about 30min late. We had a list of about 5 hostels to find a place to sleep. After walking for over an hour, and then calling about 5 more hostels and cheap hotels, were our of luck in...

May 17, 2005 - Rome

Today we caught the train to Rome from Bologna. We booked into Hotel Castelfidardo and went nearby for lunch. We had very good wood fire pizza - yum!! After we went our separate ways. Malcolm went for a nap and then climbed St Peter's cupola. Ingrid having been there before, went to update the internet site and then went shopping! In the evening we went to dinner at friend of Malcolm's from Melbourne University days.