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Published: October 14th 2008
Hello from Italy! Since our last post we have spent three days in Florence, three days in Rome, and afternoon in Pisa and are now in Naples. Florence was fantastic, and our streak of good weather continued on from Nice. Our first day we toured the city in 24 degree heat! We first visited the Duomo and belltower in the centre of Florence. We weren't allowed into the Duomo *church* since I was wearing a tank top and TJ wore shorts (i mean really, it was HOT out!!). Instead we climbed the 411 steps to the top of the belltower for an excellent view of the whole city. Next we saw the famous David statue, which is absolutely enormous and is quite impressive. There are actually three statues of David in Florence: the original in a museum, a replica which is outside of the Uffizi Gallery and a bronze replica on top of an excellent viewpoint we visited later. We sampled some gelato and fresh fruit, and walked past the Uffizi gallery although we didn't go in because it was way too expensive. We crossed a bridge that is one of the 3 in the world still lined with shops, although in the past this was very common in Europe. Almost every store on the bridge sold expensive gold jewelry so we looked but no purchases were made. After a sweaty day of touring we returned to our hostel for a swim in the pool! That night we met up with friends from Amsterdam to catch up, and were joined by friends from Nice as well.
On our last day in Florence we took a wine tour through the Chianti region of Tuscany. The first stop was San Gimignano, a cute medieval town about 45 minutes out of Florence that once had 100 tall towers built by wealthy families. Today only 13 still stand, but the sight is still impressive. We bought some pasta shaped like "male and female parts" which we ate later back at the hostel (delicious~!) Next we visited a working winery that made Chianti red wines as well as a local white wine. There were were served an authentic Italian meal with proscitto, bruschetta, penne in a tomato sauce, and a sweet foccacia bread made with vineyard grapes and sugar. Finally we toured a second winery and were taught how to properly taste wines by an expert. We got the opporunity to sample many local wines, olive oils and balsamic vinegars, including an olive oil made with truffels that would usually cost about $120 in Canada.
On our way to Rome, we took a slight detour to visit Pisa and its famous Leaning Tower. Let me reassure you, the tower really does lean. A lot. It is beautiful and constructed of white marble. All of the souvenir mugs, shot glasses and cups were hilarious because they all leaned as well! Besides the tower there is not much to see in Pisa and so we hopped back on the train to Rome.
In Rome the weather was even hotter, but we toured the Colesseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum nonetheless. The Palatine Hill is full of ancient Roman ruins and is amazing. You can really get a sense of how it looked hundreds of years ago. On our first night we walked to the Spanish Steps and joined a pub crawl that took us to four different bars. Of course we visited the Vatican City. The line to get in looked endless but we actually got in quite quickly. The collection in the museum was impressive. At the end of the museum we entered the Sistene Chapel which is nothing like how I pictured it. It is a huge rectangular room painted entirely in bright, beautiful paintings. We skipped St. Peter's Basilica due to the hour long line in full sun, but toured around the main square and appreciated the opulence of the Vatican.
Today we left Rome and traveled to Naples, about an hour south. We stowed our luggage in the train station and took another train to nearby Pompeii. Teija had very high expectations and they were certainly exceeded! The ruins of Pompeii are massive. It took us about 3 hours to walk through and see what we wanted to see and there was much that we missed. The buildings are still very intact; some even retained their roofs despite the weight of the volcanic ash. There are paintings on the walls that are still vivid, mosaics on the floor that have been uncovered and full urns that remain unbroken. Most shocking are the bodies that are on display in glass cases. It is still possible to see their facial expressions, and most were curled up covering their faces since they died from suffocation of the volcanic gases. It was quite a surreal experience and we had a great day!
We are in Naples right nowand the city has a certain Mafia charm which conjures up a love hate relationship. We arent to fond of the sketchiness of the place, but it is also one of the reasons Tj has enjoyed our stay. I think that is all, so arrivederci.
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Reese
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were you asked to "hide your valuables in your anus"? BAHAHAHA i watched eurotrip the other day and thought of you guys!