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Well we are now in Rome and what an amazing city, the last few day s have been extremely hectic and trying to fit everything in is quite difficult. Our fist fay of touring the weather was terrible, it rained all day, so we just did the Colosseum and the ruins next to the Colosseum, which were absolutely fascinating. After a few hours at loking at rocks and being drenched we decided to ride the bus through the city, we actually stayed on for a couple of rounds of the city and eventually got of at th vatican and had an amazing lunch, gnocci with sauce, my favourite!! Our idea was to eat and then do the Vatican but our bodies were not up to it and we headed back to the hotel. That night Dean and I found an Irish pub to watch the Chelsea vs Barcelona game, which I am sure you all know the result by now.
Our next day of touing Rome was far more exciteing, we started at the Vatican we knew there was a mass on but did not know the Pope himslef would be there at te top of the hill. I am
not a vry religious person, but it was still really exciting, after mass we waited to get into teh Vatican for 1.5 hours and we were at the front of the line. When we got in all of us were in awe of the beauty and size of the church. We have seen quite a few churches and cathedrals of late but this one definitely took the cake. It is magnificent. We then headed to the Vaitcan Museum to see the Sistine Chapel and the famous paintings of Michael Angelo, the musuem was massive and full of beaturil art, from tapestries to maps to renassiance art. Zia and I were in awe of the size of this place.
We then did the famous Trevi fountain and Spanish steps, after all that we wre stuffed and went and got Mr Panino (panini takeout) and headed home to watch more soccer.
After Rome we hit the relatives, our first stop is my 2nd cousin in a small village called Candida, Avellino, Napoli. They picked us up and by 11pm we were eating pasta, cheese, salami and drinking vino. The next day we meet their daughter and their near grandchild. We
spent over a week hanging out with them and they took us everywhere, Amalfi coarst, Pompeii, Mount Vergina. We also got some great recipes, the most important is Lemoncello....can't wait to make that when we get back. They were so generous that instead of us catching a train to Calabria, they drovre us and stayed until we leaft Italy.
After Napoli (and I forgot the giant pizza's in Napilo....yummmy) we drove to my bis Zio's house (Great Uncle) in Polistena, Calabria. This was our base as we travelled to meet and greet my relatives.
On our travels meeting the relatives, my aunty and I worked on the family tree and some really interesting stories were told, for example my Nonna's uncle left Italy at 20 and headed to America, he didn't return until he was 60. Now the town he was from was a very small village called Scido and everyone thought this wealthy man had returned from America and somehow he attracted this 20 year old women, may I remind you that he was about 67 years old. So they fell in love and got married and they had their first child at the ripe old age
of 73!! After the 1st kid, they then had another 2 more kids. Amazing. He then passed away a happy man at 95!!
Ok so we went alot of different places in Calabria, Italy, including; Sicily, Rocca di Neto where my father was born, Delianuova, Crotone, and Scido. I wont go into all the details as it was mainly family visits, I will let the images speak for me.
One thing I would like to say, home cooked Italian is so much better than the restaurants. Hence why Dean and I left Italy a couple of kilo's heavier!! Hehe oh well
Sorry about spelling mistakes, I'm rushing to get this posted today. Miss everyone heaps. Keep the emails coming
PS Thinking of the S&M team at SHG!
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