Back from Italy

Rebecca and I just spent three weeks in Italy! It was a wonderful trip. We saw and explored by walking miles of Rome, Pompeii, Florence, Sienna, Milan, Venice, Treviso and even Zurch , Switzerland!


We started out landing in Roma. We had a heck of a time finding our hotel, which was supposed to be a 30 minute ride from Rome. Ha! We had to take a train (which ended up being the wrong one) and then another train and then a 45 minute bus ride that left us at the bottom of a hill. At his point we had been up for almost 23 hours. As we lugged our luggage up the unpaved hill, I groaned that I was not going to make it alive to see Rome! We finally reached the hotel near the top of the hill , crawled into our room and slept until the next morning. Then refreshed we decided to go to Rome.

As we walked around Rome, we found out that the climate there is like Florida. There goes the curly hair! We saw the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and some other sights. The next day we went back to Rome and finally found the Pantheon. We went to Vatican City and joined a tour that was well worth the fee. The art work on the ceilings was spectacular! The Sistine Chapel was amazing! You need to go and see it for yourself!!

From Rome we took a train to Pompeii and were amazed at the size! We both thought it was a small area but it was a city! It was sad to see the plasters casts of the inhabitants, including one of a pregnant woman. There are still so many structures standing after all the volcanic eruption and centuries of being covered.
Wikipedia states: “ During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli (who took charge of the excavation in 1860) who realized these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to perfectly recreate the forms of Vesuvius’ victims. What resulted were highly accurate and eerie forms of the doomed Pompeiani who failed to escape, in their last moment of life, with the expression of terror often quite clearly visible.”

We also went to Ostia Lido (the beach) again by train on the Tyrrhenian Sea which is part of the Mediterranean Sea on the west coast. We had a nice relaxing day there.