Vacation to Italy

Finally a family vacation.  It's been a while since we've gone so we tried to make the best of it.  We took a trip to Italy.  We started by flying to Venice, then trained to Florence, to a train over to Pisa for the day then back to wandering around Florence.  From there we trained down to Rome.  From Rome we took a day trip to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, and we also toured the Vatican Museum and the four Basilicas in Rome, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. John's, and St. Mary Major.  We had a great time and here are some of the pictures we took.  You can find the full collection of our pictures on the the web album.  (Click on the picture of St. Basil's in the upper right corner).


So starting off in Venice we wandered around the city...

Some of the alley ways were a bit narrow...

And we saw the levitating woman.  Can you figure out how she does it?  Post your thoughts in the comments section at the end.

We had snacks

We wandered with the masses.

We bought hats

While in Venice we took a tour to the islands of Murano and Burano.  Murano is known for their glass blowing and Burano is known for their hand-made lace.

 Burano also has a leaning tower, actually there are several in Venice just because of the high water table.

Burano is also a fishing village.  They paint their houses bright colors that match their boats.  When arriving back from see they can spot their houses from a long distance off.

Demonstrating the painstaking method of hand-making lace.

 And of course since we were in Venice we had to take a Gondola ride down the canal.

And we passed Marco Polo's house (yes the explorer) and a bit further down we passed Casanova's home.

And that is the highlights from Venice.  We only spent a couple of days here, but I think we saw most of what Venice has to offer.  It is a very beautiful city and being a popular tourist destination, very expensive.  From here we took a water taxi to the train station and were off to Florence...  Here are the rest of our Venice Pictures

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of the Flower) is the main church in Florence.  We climbed to the top of the dome and got a great view of Florence and the surrounding area.  A must do for anyone going to Florence.

 The inside of the dome is painted with scenes of Hell and Heaven.

This was a private church built by the Medici family back in the 16th century.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Chapel

 This is the view down

 And that is were we were on the Dome.

While in Florence you have to see Michelangelo's David.  Though they did not allow pictures of the original there are a couple of replicas out around the city.  Here is one at the museum.

And here are some other sculptures from around the city...

And you gotta love a bit of modern art/graffiti.

While in Florence, we caught a train to Pisa to see the leaning tower and the Basilica there.  We didn't get there early enough to get timely tickets to climb the tower, but it was hot enough and just being there was pretty cool.  And our Florence Pictures

Of course we had to do the standard touristy poses...

 Inside the Basilica it was huge, and filled with art work.

In the foreground is the Baptismal, then the Basilica, and finally the Leaning Tower

And the rest of the Pisa Pictures

After Pisa we spent one more night in Florence before taking the high speed train down to Rome.  I have to say there's a lot of old stuff in Rome, go figure....  Even walking through we seems to be a modern part of the city, you stumble on an old wall or ruins.  It's pretty cool to know you are walking on some of the same cobble stone streets that they used thousands of years ago.  

In parts of Rome especially around the Forum area, they found ruins of older civilization dating back to over 700 BC.  From Rome, we took an all day trip to Mount Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii.  Here's a taste of that.  We've got a ton of pictures on the web album at: Pompeii Pictures

 At the bottom of this next picture you can see 3 large stones in the street.  This was a crosswalk.  Back in the day, the streets were the drainage system so you needed elevated crosswalks to keep your feet dry.  You can also see grooves in the road, these are from the wagons. The wagons had a standard 4'6" axle length and the wooden wheels were covered with iron.  After a lot of use, the wheels wore grooves into the stone.

It was a hot day, and fortunately there were many fountains around that we could use to fill up our water bottles.

And finally through the streets of Rome.  In Rome we didn't get to see everything, we would need a full two weeks to take it all in.  But we did see a lot of the touristy stuff... like the Colosseum

and fountains

and ruins at the Forum

and more ruins,

 and more ruins,

and Saint Peter's Basilica

 and other basilicas

and obelisks

and we ate and drank.... we were merry too

and street perfomers

and dead Popes

and souvenir shops

and our last day in Rome well we didn't stay in Rome, we went to the beach!

Well that is our vacation is short, well kinda short.  Here is the link to the hundreds of Rome Pictures.  We had a great time.  And now we are back in Moscow, enjoying the summer time and loonnnggg days.  Though we've passed the summer solstice, the days are still 16+ hours long.