Italy #1 - Florence, Siena, and Civita

On the day after Christmas we left for a trip to Italy. Being the middle of winter, we figured we'd get slightly better weather by traveling south of here. To some extent that was true. Unfortunately, we packed clothes & coats for southern Italy, so we froze in northern Italy. A few themes for the trip were: Gelato, Ikea, and Decathlon. Gelato, because we got it every chance we could. Ikea, because we passed so many on the highways in Italy and Switzerland. And Decathlon, because we went to several of those stores in different locations in Italy to buy warm clothes.




The first day we drove through Switzerland and over the Gotthard pass, and made it as far as Bologna, where we stayed the night. We got up the next day and drove in to Florence. We saw the Duomo, went to the Mercato Nuovo, did some shopping (ties, gloves, scarves), got some panini for lunch, and walked around the downtown area and across the river on the Ponte Vecchio.

Florence's Duomo (above and below).

The floor inside the Duomo.

On the Ponte Vecchio.

We then drove on to Siena, where we had hotel rooms reserved for the night -- right in the downtown area. We walked around the city - saw the Duomo (the kids called it the zebra church, because inside everything is striped black and white stone - similar to the outside (below), the Piazza del Campo, and a few other things. Our hotel room windows had a nice view right out over the rooftops of the city, down and then up a hill toward the Duomo. That day was my birthday - so we celebrated with a few cards and gifts, and had some pastries we purchased at a few different bakeries around town.

Siena's Duomo - not to be confused with Florence's.

The Piazza del Campo (above and below).

View from the hotel room window.

The next day as we got back on the road, it started to snow. We figured we were heading south, though, so the snow should stop by the time we got to Rome. On the way, though, we stopped at a small place called Civita di Bagnoregio, which is up in the hills. Civita is a small city up on a hilltop, only accessible by a bridge. We would definitely like to come back and see some of these places in the spring.

Italy #2 - Rome

We rented an apartment in downtown Rome for 4 nights. It was great to be able to drive to a place and stay for a few days (the rest of the trip was a different hotel every night). Plus, we had more space than hotel rooms would have been, and it was quite a bit more relaxing. We arrived at the hotel at about 3:00 in the afternoon, and we were still cold from our day being outside (especially Civita). There ended up being a problem with the heating system, and we had to call someone to come in and fix it.

While we were waiting for all of that to get resolved, we went to a grocery store to get some food for our stay there in Rome, and we came back and ate pasta - but we were freezing cold.

The kids all huddled under a blanket to watch a movie after dinner. Thankfully, by the time everyone went to bed, we had heat in the apartment.

We spent a day touring the Vatican - we saw St. Peter's Basilica, then after waiting in the ticket line for the Vatican museum, we went on an express tour of the museum, ending up in the Sistine Chapel at the end. It was interesting to see all the art and the historical artifacts collected there. Nash, especially, appreciated the fact that we could go to another country on this trip - reminding us of the fact that technically Vatican City is an independent nation.

At the Piazza San Pietro in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

Interesting sign on the way in to the Vatican. Apparently one legged women and men in overalls and missing a shoulder are not allowed inside St. Peter's Basilica.

The Swiss Guards decked out in their fancy duds.

Luke got in this line with the others to touch the foot of a statue of Peter, famous now for the fact that his foot is almost rubbed off.

On the Vatican Museum tour.

Nash and Grant checking out the maps on the walls of the cartography room.

Taking a break inside the museum -- by this time in the day (about 2:00 PM), we had been on our feet since about 9:00 AM - walking, standing in line for tickets, and then walking through the museum. The kids did really well with it, as long as we kept them fed on pizza and gelato.

We think this is the border of Italy and Vatican City - I think its the wall that surrounds the Vatican.

At the Piazza Nuova - Grant dropped some coins in the can of this cowboy statue, who promptly came to life and posed with Grant and Mallory for some photos.

At the Pantheon -- quite an impressive building.

One of many gelato stops.

This is at a church near Palentine Hill - it is called the mouth of truth. You stick your hand in the mouth, and supposedly if you are a liar, it will bite your hand off. Luke wasn't so lucky.

We really liked seeing the ancient Roman sites - we started at the Palentine, saw the Colloseum, Circus Maximus, and the Forum.

Circus Maximus -- former chariot race stadium, etc. Palentine Hill is in the back on the left.

At the Palentine, with the Colloseum in the background.

Grant at the Palentine.

Mallory chose to take her afternoon nap halfway through our tour of the Colloseum.

The Forum...

Piazza del Campidoglio - designed by Michelangelo - on the Capitoline Hill.

Nash by one of the many SPQR signs -- Senatus Populusque Romanus, meaning "the senate and people of Rome."

Italy #3 - Pompeii, Amalfi, Pisa, and Venice

We decided to use our last day in Rome on a side trip down south. We went to Pompeii and spent a couple of hours, then we also went to the Amalfi Coast.

Pompeii was an impressive place -- it is huge. I'm not sure we saw 20% of it. Grant and Luke liked hopping on these stones, used to cross the street.

Here is Pompeii's forum, with Vesuvius in the background.

We then drove a portion of the Amalfi Coast - we found a butcher and bought some paninis, then we bought some oranges from a roadside stand. It was a really nice day - until the kids started getting carsick and the car started to get low on fuel. Thankfully, everyone held down their lunch and we didn't run out of gas.

We spent New Years Eve in Rome, after arriving back home from Pompeii & Amalfi. Nash, Grant, and I went on the street at about 10:00 looking for some gelato, which we eventually found. We then came back to the apartment, and at midnight, we went up on the roof to see the fireworks around the city. It was really loud - fireworks going on all around us.

After leaving Rome on our way back up north, we decided to stop in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. We figured we were close enough, we may as well stop in to see it.

We bought tickets to go to the top of the tower - but we had to kill a couple of hours. Solution? Gelato, of course, and then we rented this "bike" for 30 minutes. The boys had fun taking turns being the driver. Mallory just sat on the front and enjoyed the ride.

And, the boys on the top of the Leaning Tower.

We then drove toward Venice, arriving at a hotel on the mainland late that night. The next morning we parked the car and took the water bus over to the island. It was really foggy that day, and again, really cold.

By the time we got to the island of Venice, Luke was absolutely sick of the cold (we all were, actually). We had to wait in line to get into the Palazzo Ducale (the Doge's Palace), so I tried to distract him by offering him 100 Euros if he could catch a bird with his bare hands - he spent the rest of the day trying to entice one close enough to him to grab it. I still have my 100 Euros.

The Rialto bridge on the grand canal.

The largest piece of pizza these boys have ever eaten.

We could not figure out why this guy, who was clearly a tourist, was carrying around a large, fake candy cane.

And then we had one last Italian gelato - on the Piazza San Marco. You can see the fog in the background toward the Doge's palace. It was too cold for Mallory, though. She just had a few bites, and her lips were blue. We were freezing anyway, and then to put ice cold gelato into your body was a crazy thing to do, in hindsight.

We all really enjoyed the trip. We ended up putting about 4,000 km on our car in 9 days -- roughly the distance between New York and LA. It was a lot of driving, but we were able to see most of what we had wanted to see in Italy, though we all wish we could have spent more time.