Rome (il Papa morto) April 7th 2005 Roma. With millions of pilgrims flooding into the city and taking the Metro to the same stop as the one nearest our hotel, we opted for a cab. Probably not the cheapest solution by any means. Many of the roads leading to our hotel which is located one block from Vatican City were closed to motor traffic so our cabbie took us the long way around. It beat the line for the overflowing Metro and w ... read more
Europe » Italy » Lazio » Rome Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the city-states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II. An era of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s when Benito MUSSOLINI establis... ... read more
I'm lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest and to have a career with summers off so that I can take advantage of backpacking sections of the Pacific Crest Trail whenever the muse and weather conditions align. More recently I strayed from home and backpacked Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon with my then husband-to-be, Paul. Call it a pre-honeymoon. Had we not gotten along famously along the trail, would there have been a wedding? For the actual honeymoon, we took a more civilized route and spent a week in Italy. Where to next? Kenya? back to Belize? Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands?... full info