Venice, Italy

That morning leaving Florence was very hectic, but we ended up making our train and getting to Venice in good time.  We met some really nice students from New York doing a culinary study abroad on the train and had a nice conversation as to what they were experiencing. That helped the train ride go much quicker.

Where we stayed wasn't actually Venice, it was Mestre, which was the town lacated over the bridge from Venice.  It was much cheaper to stay here.  Venice is very expensive. Our hotel was actually a good distance away from the train station so we had to figure out how to get a ticket, which bus to take, and where we were actually going.  We managed, and arrived to the hotel around 2.  Once we got settled we had to figure out how to get to Venice from there.  It turned out not to be too difficult, and we bought bus tickets and tickets for the boat along the Grand Canal.  Venice is definitely very touristy.  As soon as we started to drive over the bridge I noticed many buses and cruise ships in the water.  There are many shops and I don't really see how anyone could actually live there.

I was even more amazed seeing Venice in person.  I still understand how the whole city is built on water.  There are bridges everywhere and the water running through are like streets in a normal city. The streets they have are so narrow and small with a lot of turns.  Even with the map in my hands I had no idea how to get to certain things and I almost never knew where I actually was.  

The ride in to Venice we took a boat from the main station to the main center, Piazza San Marco.  

This bridge in the background is the Rialto Bridge which is the most famous bridge in Venice and crowded with tourists. 

San Marco was very crowded.  There were people everywhere, even though it was a big Piazza.  This is where the well know St. Mark's Basillica along with a few other buildings.  It would have been much prettier with less people there but still amazing non the less.  I'm still amazed at how every church I see, although similar, each have their own unique style.  

We quickly got out the main square and from there we didn't have much of a plan.  We ate some pizza for a late lunch and just walked around a lot.  We saw another Ferrari store like in Florence and some other big name stores.  We took some classic Venice pictures as we tried to make our way to the Rialto Bridge for more photos.  

A few things Venice is very known for is their glass breaking and making very unique things out of glass, and their costume masks.  Stores for both of those things were everywhere.  

We made it to the bridge and got some very nice photos there which show a lot of what Venice looks like over the Grand Canal.

After the bridge we made our way back down the Canal but got off at the Academia.  We didn't see the Academia but wanted to see the view from that point looking over the water where the canal connects to the Gulf of Venice which is connected to the Mediterranean Sea.  We could see San Marco from there as well and we hit it right at sunset too which made it beautiful.  As we were walking to the tip we found a really neat glass store where everything there was made of glass.  It was very nice and cool to see.  

This was a close up of the gondolas.  I didn't realize how nice these actually were.  They are actually furnished.  

Once the sun set we started to make our way back to the station and find a place for dinner to eat.  We stopped in a few more glass stores and some wine stores as well.  

We ate dinner in what I think was the Spanish district of Venice.  At least that's what they called it.  Unfortunately our meals were not very good.  My mom got some pasta with lobster on it but had to actually pull the meat herself from the lobster and the same with my dad's fish.  That's just how they do the food in most of Europe, or what I have seen of the seafood anyway.  And our service wasn't that great so we were ready to get out of there.  We had no idea where we were in Venice but it turns out we had a very short walk back to the station to catch our bus back the hotel.  Venice was a very nice trip that we made in one day.  It was hectic but really all the time we needed.  I don't know what I would have done if we went back another day.  

Florence, Italy

When we arrived in Florence after Rome, the first day we just did a lot of walking around, seeing the city.  First, we stayed in the Grand Hotel Minerva which was very nice and had really good breakfasts.  We went into a few shops, which Florence has a lot of.  They are well known for their shopping district and leather.  There were markets and stores for leather everywhere.  We ventured over to the Piazza del Duomo and got to see the Duomo and the opera house, but we couldn't go into either one of them because they were closed for the evening.  They were both different from any style of buildings I have seen so far.  The colors on the outside were beautiful.  Apparently this region along with Tuscany were competing against each other to make the best churches.  Florence decided to spend of their money on the outside, and didn't have much left to make the inside quite as spectacular.

The building closest in the picture is the opera house and the building in the foreground is the Duomo. 

Then we went to the Piazza della Repubblica and saw the arch and column which shows some of the only historical remnants in this piazza.  While in this piazza we saw a really cool Mercedes parked in front of this hotel.  It looks to be a 50's or early 60's style.

We walked through some streets and shops before reaching the Piazza della Signoria and seeing the Palazzo Vecchio. Here there was an old Palace with statues everywhere.  There was a replica of the statue of David along with other really neat statues.  This was also situated next to the Ufici which we did not see because we wanted to see the Acadamia instead, and by this time were a little tired of museums after being in Rome.

This last picture is the archway of the Ufici leading out to the Arno River and getting a perfect view of the Ponte Vecchio, which is a beautiful site.  I have seen see a bridge constructed like that, with so many colors and taking the shape of a building crossing the river. This bridge has consists of stores selling extremely expensive diamond and gold jewelry.  

That night for dinner we ate an outside restaurant in the Piazza della Repubblica that we were in earlier.  Funny story about the place we ate at because when we were there earlier this really nice guy approached my parents and tried to get them to eat lunch there.  They loved the guy and decided they wanted to go back for dinner.  We got free champagne before dinner and we all had really good meals.  Mom and I split wine and dad got a liter of beer, because he is a big boy.  I had a wild boar sauce and meat over pasta because I was very interested to see what it tasted like.  It was very good.  I can't really describe the taste.  We stayed there and talked for a really long time.  When we started to walk away, the guy who previously tried to get my parents to eat lunch there ran after us and told us he wanted to give us all shots of limoncello.  They were all so nice. 

The next morning we started out by eating a very good lunch in the dining room before we headed to see the Duomo.  It was raining, which was actually the first time since I have been traveling that it has rained.  But it was very light and only lasted a few hours.  Like I said before, the Duomo wasn't that impressive on the inside but I really liked the tile and the painting on the ceiling.  There was also a terrace that you could walk on high in the Duomo, but we didn't do that.  

From there we went to the Academia where there were a lot of sculptures, the most famous being Michelangelo's statue of David.  He had other work in there as well, and there were a lot of sculptures from the artist Botticelli.  As I mentioned in my Rome blog, I traveled to Rome with John because he was also meeting his parents and traveling to some of the same places as I was.  But it was still shocking that while in a big city like Florence, standing in line for the Academia we ran into him and his family.  We walked through the Academia together before splitting off.  There were no cameras allowed in this entire museum and they were very strict about the statue of David but I had to try and sneak a few pictures in.  

We did a lot o shopping after this and went back to the Ponte Vecchio as well.  My dad bought two pair of shoes and we met a really nice guy at one of the stores that we probably talked to for about 45 minutes.  That night for dinner we decided to try this place near our hotel called Bucca Mario.  It was a recommended place that they said you needed a reservation, which we didn't have, but they were very nice and seated us within 15 minutes.  While standing there, which was right next to the kitchen, I saw the biggest steak I have ever seen.  They had three steaks on their menu for one, two, or three people and this one was the one for three.  It looked amazing.  The restaurant was actually underground.  We had to walk down a few steps to enter.  When I first walked in there was hardly any room and there were only about ten tables that I could see for seating.  But when our hostess took us to our seat it ended up being a maze and actually very large.  There was a lot of people and a lot of seating.  It was a very nice atmosphere and we all had very good meals.  Italian food is so good.  We relaxed that night and I got up very early the next morning and went to the train station to see if we could get tickets to Venice early that day.  I went at 7 in the morning and the only reasonable ticket for doing one day in Venice left at 8:30. So I sprinted back to the hotel to wake my parents so we could catch that train. That's how Venice started.  

Rome

We just had our first ten day break. After going to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest for two days I met my parents Sunday night in Rome.  I was very excited to be able to meet them.  I got a little lost coming out of the train station for about 45 minutes because I wasn't sure where the hotel was, just that it was near the train station.  I guess I underestimated how big Rome was, and how many hotels there could be in one block.  The city, to me, had a much bigger feel to it than it actually was.  I think that's because there are so many tourists.  But Rome has about 2.5 million people compared to about 8.5 million in New York City. Fact of the day.

We stayed at the Hotel Mediterraneo, which was a fairly old building, built in the early 1900's I think.  It was noticeable, but nice.  I felt the staff was a little unfriendly though.  We just went to a small pizza place down the street because I got in so late, but I really liked the pizza.

The next day, we went and did some minimal touring, but didn't see any major sites as we were on our way to do a wine tour on the outskirts of Rome.  These were some of the sites we saw on our walk through the city.

Basilica in Piazza Della Repubblica 

These pictures are in St. Maria Maggiore Church

I'm not exactly sure but I think was a common house for a lot of the people in the area. It was located in a nice park.  

Just showing how congested the streets were.  There was a train strike in Rome that day though. They happen frequently in Italy and their all planned ahead of time.   

This is the St. John Lantern Basilica. 

After we saw these sights we got some pizza and gelato before we took our Frescotti wine tour on the outskirts of Rome.  The tour was on a 200 acre farm where they also grew olives and produced their own olive oil.  The ground was very fertile, sitting on volcanic ashes which made the grapes very good.  An interesting fact I learned was that roses are set at the end of each row of vines.  If there is disease in the ground the harvesters know because the flower is the first to be affected.  This way they can protect their grapes.  We also had a wine tasting of four different kinds of wine ranging from light and heavy wines to a dessert wine.  It was a lot of fun.  That was pretty much the extent of our first day.

The second day we saw a lot of things and did an incredible amount of walking.  We started off by taking the metro to the Vatican, which was an experience in itself.  Luckily we had tickets and we didn't need to wait in the long line to get in.  I didn't realize how massive the Vatican Museum actually was until we entered at around 10 and didn't leave till around 2.  There were so many exhibits of art and culture.  I have heard that if you took time to look at each exhibit for 2 seconds, you would be in the museum for 10 years.  The art, sculptures, and history was amazing.  

These are only some of the pictures. I took a lot

I also took some pictures of the Sistine Chapel, which is where Michelangelo painted his masterpiece.  I technically wasn't supposed to take pictures but I had to try and capture this. 

Pictures can't exactly capture the detail and all of the attention of this incredible room.

After we left the Vatican Museum we went down the street to see St. Peters Basilica.  This was the most amazing church I seen yet.  The piazza itself that it was located in was beautiful and even the outside of the church was massive.  But the inside is what was even more gorgeous and appeared even more massive.  It was interesting to see Swiss soldiers guarding it too.  

After Vatican City we made our way over to Castel Sant'Angelo.  This is another amazing structure, not made from marble, but bricks.  The castle was made for a roman emperor around 135 AD but then turned into a military fortress around 401.  It was a different kind of structure moving away from the typical Roman look. 

I would have liked to see this device in working condition. 

We made our way across the river back into the heart of Rome.  We went into the Piazza Navona which had many street artists and another church to look at.  This was a very nice piazza and busy with restaurants and street acts.  

We continued to the Pantheon.  This building was not what I expected.  You had the marble on the front side but the interior and everywhere else around the building was brick.  It was another large structure and interesting to see the popes buried inside.  

We saw two other structures before my parents started to rebel and needed to rest.  So we stopped for lunch right next to Temple Adriano. This was was the best meal I had in Rome.  I had an alfredo. We had a nice dinner with some wine, and of course dad got the beer.  Then we went and saw the government building before eating a a recommended gelato place, Geoletti, which is my favorite so far in all of Europe.  I had oreo and caramel. 

We had one more stop to make on our way back to the hotel.  I wanted to see the Trevi Fountain at night, and I was not disappointed.  This was one of my favorite sites in all of Rome.  It was very crowded and touristy.  It wasn't only the fountain that made it so beautiful but the water, lights, and the fact that is was connected to a very nice building as well.  And of course we had to take part in the ritual of throwing coins in the fountain. 

We called it a night after this.  We saw a few more things on our way back to the hotel like the opera house but it was safe to say that we were exhausted and slept well which was good because we may have done even more walking the next day.  

The first thing we saw the next day was a huge open field called the Circo Massimo.  I couldn't understand why everyone was looking at what looked like just a track for joggers but I later found out it was a huge arena for chariot races and probably looked awesome at the time.

We then roamed around on Palentine Hill and the Roman Forum for a few hours.  It was difficult to grasp the place without the knowledge of the history but seeing some pictures of what they thought it looked like back then, it really makes you appreciate it more.  The Roman Forum was really cool and it looks like it used to be an amazing place. 

This was a room in Emperor Augustus's house

This was called the stadium where they had chariot races

Arch of Titus

From here we went to the Coliseum.  It was definitely something to see in person.  Its one thing to hear about the stories and see it in movies but another to actually see.  We took a guided tour which was interesting,  I was really bummed to hear that they just recently closed the "basement" to the Coliseum where the gladiators and animals were, but it was still amazing to even look down on.  There were 60 spaces available underneath for all different kinds of animals that could appear through trap doors on the surface at any time.  

We loved seeing all of the sights in Rome and had a really good time.  This was our last day in Rome and then we were leaving to go to Florence.