Rome: Other random stuff

As I have mentioned, we did a lot of wandering in Rome, so I do have several other pictures of sites to share. And here they are.

This is a view of St. Peter's from our hotel room. We stayed a bit outside of the city center because I wanted to use my Marriott points. The hotel had a shuttle to and from the city every half hour and it was also only two blocks to the train station that connected with the Metro line, so it saved money and worked out pretty well.

Here's the Spanish Steps. We hung out in this area for shopping and food a few times.

Here is a view of Piazza Navona. In case you are unaware and have never read Angels and Demons, there are a crap-loan of squares and fountains in Rome.

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I got of the Trevi fountain. And my mom's hand is in it. It's apparently much more awesome looking at night, but it is also difficult to get good pictures then.

This is a stray cat that we say sitting on a motorcycle seat at a train station in Ostia Antica. Cuuute.

And that concludes my Italy posts. There were several other interesting things to do and see in Rome, so I feel like I could go back there 100 times and not see everything. If I was to make a return trip to Italy though, I would definitely go back to Venice (2 days), Siena (2 days), Florence (2-3 days), and Rome (2-3 days). I would also like to explore a bit south of Rome, like in Sorrento and Capri. Maybe when I can convince Blake to come with me some day, and when the exchange rate isn't a complete botch, I can make that happen.

Rome: Anciant sites

Finally, by our third day in Rome, the rain stopped. Our second day was spent wandering and shopping because we couldn't get into the Borghese Gallery and being outside was lame. So there's not much to say about that.

We started at the Colosseum. It is very very large. There's not much else to say about it I suppose. See for yourself:

Next, we went to the Forum and Palatine Hill. We began to tire of the endless ruins around this point.

We then walked through the Piazza Navona to the Pantheon. Pics from the Piazza will be in the next post. Here's the Pantheon.

The next post will be other random stuff from Rome and then my Italy posting will be complete and we can move onto other things like the World Series.

Rome: Vatican City

Sorry for the long time between Italy posts; it's a long story that involves going to the World Series last minute (awesome pics from that coming up too, I promise). I'm going to separate my Rome stuff into three posts, so here is the first one on the Vatican City sites.

We went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's the first day we were in Rome because it was raining and those are both largely indoor activities. After seeing the museum and the church, we went to the Piazza del Popolo and wandered around. I don't have many pictures as a result of the rain and the fact that flash photography was allowed pretty much nowhere, But here's a few things.

View of St. Peter's from a window in the Vatican Museum

Sistene Ceiling

Michaelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica

Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo

The next post will be a picture-heavy Ancient Rome post, so be on the lookout for that.

Vernazza

Vernazza is one of the towns that makes up the Cinque Terre. They're five little towns built into hills on the water, and they are really best known for the plentiful hiking trails in the area. I just wanted to go so I could say I spent time on the Italian Riviera. Unfortunately, it rained the whole way there and the whole time we were there. I got a few pictures when the rain briefly stopped.

The way there was a disaster because our train was running late so we missed our connection and wound up sitting at a train station for two hours. By the time we found the hotel (which was lovely) we just wanted to eat and go to bed, so we did. The next day check out was at 10am (what????) and our train to Rome wasn't until 1, so we did a fair amount of sitting around and going to the internet cafe. Fun.

I bet it would be awesome if the weather was nice and I wanted to hike, but it wound up being a bit out of the way of everywhere else and added a lot of unnecessary travel to the trip. But you can't change the weather, so what can you do? At least we relaxed a bit.

I'll start up the Rome posts tomorrow. :)

Florence

I think that Florence was my favorite city in Italy. First of all, the shopping was unparalleled. Awesome. I regret not buying more there actually, because Rome was a bit of a let down on the shopping scene. Also, everything worth seeing could be easily walked to. Especially from the awesome location of our hotel.

We got there on a Sunday morning and checked into the hotel. Then, we had to do all museum related activities immediately because they would be closed on Monday. So we went to the Accademia gallery to see the David, and several other Michaelangelo statues, and then we went to the Uffizi gallery. We had to wait on line for both of them, which was lame. We also wandered the Palazzo Vecchio, where we saw the copy of the David in the original statue's location. And we shopped.

Palazzo Vecchio

Fake David (in the real David's original location)

Monday we toured the Duomo which was HUGE. So big in fact that I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture, so I had to take several pictures from different angles instead. We also went to the designer outlets, but it was a bit of a let down - any discount as a result of being at an outlet was completely eliminated by the horrible exchange rate. So we didn't get anything there. But we went shopping again once we got back to the city.

Our train to Vernazza wasn't until the afternoon on Tuesday, so we went to the Santa Croce church in the morning to check it out. And then we did some shopping (surprise). And then we got on a train to Vernazza, which is where the disasters started. But that's a story for another day.

Santa Croce

Michaelangelo's tumb

Gallileo's tumb

I'll update with Vernazza and Rome (in a few different posts) next week. But for now, I go home for the weekend. Yay. Happy Friday everyone. And go Yankees (I cannot listen to Blake gloating about the Phillies winning the World Series for the second year in a row...especially if it's at the hands of my Yankees. That would be horrible).

Siena

First of all, I will say that if you ever go to Italy, go to Siena. It's really awesome. There's not much to do but wander and hang out and eat amazing foods and drink delicious wines. There's also some solid shopping. And if you go to Siena, stay here. Beautiful hotel. With amazing views. In fact, here's a view from our hotel room right now.

Hello, Tuscan hills.

There's a cathedral and a main square, called Il Campo, in the center of town that was an easy walk from the hotel. On the way, we stopped for lunch and oh my god it was amazing. I had gnocchi in a carrot and walnut cream sauce. SO GOOD. After that we hit the cathedral, wandered on the square, and ate gelato (naturally).

Cathedral

Clock tower/town hall building

Il campo

We also found a great dinner destination filled with locals that was fantastic. We each got a little jug of wine, that wound up being like 3 glasses, for like 6 euros, and since we were in Tuscany, it was really good. I can't remember exactly what my meal was, but I think it was a tortelloni in some kind of delicious wine sauce. After dinner we did some shopping and I got the awesome purple purse from the previous post.

I wish we had stayed there fore more than one night, even though there wasn't much to do. I easily could have done a half day wine tasting tour the next day and eaten more of the region's food for another day. I will definitely make a return trip at some point.

Bologna

There's really only one reason to go to Bologna: the food. Bologna is where a lot of really important Italian foods were created. Bolognese sauce (meat sauce) is probably the most popular. They are also responsible for filled pastas like tortellini and ravioli, parmesean cheese, and proscuitto. Its nickname is "Bologna the Fat" because of the food. Which is fine with me.

We had easily the most delicious lunch ever at a restaurant that we found while wandering near the hotel (which was in a great location btw). I don't know what exactly one can do to regular old bruschetta to make it as good as it was at this place, but I don't care. I also had some tortelloni in a cheese and wine sauce that was amazing. Good times.

I must find you again some time, Il Saraceno.

Bologna is not a normal tourist destination. It has a small square with stores and a cathedral on it, and some medieval towers, but otherwise it's pretty much a regular city. The church was especially odd because its construction took hundreds of years and, as you can see, somewhere around the halfway point they completely changed artistic directions. It was a little odd.

Cathedral

Clock tower and shops on the square

The square

Fountain on the square

One of the medieval towers

I wouldn't spend more than a day there at a time because of the lack of sights, but if you are anywhere near it and want delicious food, you should go. I had a delicious mushroom ravioli for dinner and the most amazing hot chocolate ever while I was there as well. This hot chocolate was like they just melted a hershey bar and poured it in a cup, that's not thick it was. Amazing.