This morning we had a bit of a sleep in, we had breakfast we bought from the supermarket in our apartment and then went for a short walk around Rome. We then had a coffee at our favourite place and scored some free biscuits! After our coffee we started our first tour where we went to Vatican City. So technically we went to a different country today! We met our tour guide Flavia Pompeii (very Italian), she picked us up from the apartment and then took us to Vatican City. The city was amazing, we managed to skip the line and get in there quickly, but we got held up outside the museum as it was blocked off as the Pope had decided to use the Sistine Chapel for a few hours. We were finally allowed ... read more

This morning we found out that the bell tower right next door goes off at 7 am. ...so no sleeping in for us! In the morning we went inside the cathedral next door and got to see the inside of the duomo which has a beautifully painted roof. We'd planned to see the real statue of David but the line was too long so we did a bit of shopping instead. Later we did a wine tour in Chianti which has the beautiful picturesque hills of the tuscan region. The wine is amazing and Chianti has over 400 vineyards and is one of the oldest wine regions in the world which makes this area famous for its wine. Our bus driver was amazing as he had to drive around the windy, narrow roads and deal with ... read more

This morning we woke up early and took a boat to Murano which is one of the islands in Venice. It was pouring with rain so I bought a lovely bright blue poncho on the way which worked really well, but may have not been the classiest thing to wear in Italy! Murano is famous for it's glass artwork. We saw a demonstration of how they made their glass by either blowing into it to make the vases or moulding the hot glass to make different sculptures. Their glass work is amazing and you have to be very skilled to do that type of work. We bought our first piece of artwork on Murano which is a little elegant twisted glass sculpture. We looked at a few others as well, our favourite piece was a beautiful ... read more

We had a big day today exploring Venice! This morning we had our buffet breakfast at our hotel (which we took advantage of!) and then started a walking tour around Venice. Our guide took us around all the parts of Venice that we probably wouldn't have got to see or know the significance of if we'd done it by ourselves. We went over the famous Rialto Bridge, walked through the local market place and visited many courtyards. We learnt that if a street name contained Rio, it used to be a canal and that Venician is a different language from Italian and when they tried to change the names to Italian spelling, the locals crossed out the extra letters to change it back. There are many pictures and sculptures of lions on the buildings around Venice ... read more

Today we travelled through the Swiss Alps by train from Chur to Lugano. The train ride we took was a scenic train called the Bernina express. It is the most beautiful train ride I have ever taken with some of the best views I've ever seen in my life! This is the part of Switzerland I've been looking forward to the most, it it definitely did not disappoint! We have beautiful snowy mountains in New Zealand but this was completely different. The mountains the train went up and through were massive. Some of the train ride was lower so you had the beautiful green grass with the snowy mountains in the background, and as we went up it became more snowy until it was completely covered in snow (and by then we were up in the ... read more