Blogs from Vatican City, Vatican City, Europe - page 5

Vatican. Our first morning in Rome started with an exciting trip on the Rome subway, far far better, though not as extensive, as the London one (and Joe, I can use it, on my own!! (there are only two lines though, so its pretty easy to do but....)) and it has air conditioning! Magic. We got off the tube at the Vatican and wandered towards St Peter's Cathederal. Being English and seeing a queue I felt it was my duty to join this queue (never mind the minor issue that I had no idea what I was queuing for....) much to the hilarity of Cat and Lucy, who thought I was just stupid, and wouldn't believe that queuing is an English tradition. We got into the Vatican area and saw the queue for St Pete's getting ... read more

I watched a Bruce Willis movie, “The Last Boyscout,” in Italian last night. I didn’t know Bruce could speak Italian ;) Good stuff. I also endured the worst shower and internet hassle (trying to reserve the Florence hostel) ever—avoid Globetrotter Gulliver’s house in Rome if you have the chance… my experience was by no means the worst I saw at that place. Anyways: I write this entry on the train from Rome to Florence at 9pm after a full day of walking in the Vatican city. My heels are bruised and burning. I may take a break tomorrow instead of hitting Pisa, we’ll see what my feet think in the morning  The Vatican is, without a doubt, the most densely packed collection of masterworks in the world. They estimate that if someone were to spend ... read more

Ciao! I am really loving Italy. It's such an adventure everywhere we go. Especially trying to upload photos in an internet cafe. So far I haven't found one that has worked for me which is kind of disheartening, but I'll live. Today has been long, but quite wonderful. We woke up at 5:45 in order to get to the Vatican early enough without a long wait. Standing in line was something in itself. When we got off the metro at our stop, some people literally started running to the Vatican. It was 7:30, an hour and 45 minutes before it even opened! But I should have figured, it was free entrance today into the Musei Vaticano... also the reason why we were going today as well. But we got there and were pretty close to the ... read more

Hi everyone, it has been difficult to find internet cafes in parts of Italy. We left the Villa on Saturday and on our way to Naples Carolina and I got separated from the rest of the group due to the train taking off too fast and people crowding on the train. We ended up having to take a taxi through Naples and we thought we were going to die. . I have never been so scared in my entire life as we were in that taxi. We were saying our last prayers. . . we finally hooked up with the others and went on to Sorrento. We arrived in Sorrento and after 6 months of no rain they decided to have a torrential storm and the streets were flooded. It was so bad we couldn't get ... read more

We slept in per plan (and need!) until 9am then headed downstairs for breakfast. We returned to the room to process the outstanding blogs for 7/3 and 7/4 which gave us time to relax some more and think about the plans ahead; the rest of today, tomorrow's train travel to Florence around 2pm and an afternoon transfer to Venice the day after. We are officially global road warriors! There may be those who fly more often and to more places, but we have earned a spot on the "A" list for international travel. As a team, we are VERY good. One looks left while the other looks right; we are both aware of the details and and we trade off those moments when the dominant "gut feeling" leads and we generally find ourselves in the ... read more