Roma

Sorry that this is so late. We gave talks in church this week so extra time was hard to find.

On day five after another 3 hour train ride we made it to Rome. Day 5 was Sunday and we wanted to go to church today but scheduling would not permit. So, we thought we would go to the Vatican City. We we got to our hotel our hotelier told us that was a bad idea Sunday afternoons are really busy (Mass is at 5 or 6). So we opted to go and see Rome. Our first stop the Colosseum. We look the subway there and everywhere else.

Spencer was a great guide (and Rick Steves. All day I had my face in his book.)


I think the kids are bored. What do you think?



and the Colosseum is just right there. See...



The Colosseum was amazing. We spent alot of time here just looking at the architecture. This was one of my favorite places.




Next we were off to see Capital Hill. This was Rome's main square. I should have Spencer take a picture of this but in the ruins there was clay pipe plumbing in the walls. Amazing. There is so much history in this square. We didn't really take the time that I wanted but there is always next time. Here are some pictures of this area.





Next the Parthenon. We had a little rain today so there is water in the middle of the floor since the only light is the hold in the ceiling.




Well this is the end of Day 1 in Rome. I will do Day 2 in the morning.

The Birth Place of the Renaissance...

Florence. After another 3 hour train ride we arrived in Florence. Our first stop of the day was McDonald's :( for lunch as we only had an afternoon left in Florence. We checked into our hotel and then it was off to the Accademia. Here we saw the David by Michelangelo. We also saw Michelangelo's unfinished works. It was really amazing to see the work in the stones that he made. Sorry no pictures were aloud in the Accademia but a replica of the David is shown below. After the Accademia it was off to see the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. This bridge has shops on it like the one in Venice. However, the only stores on it were jewelry shops.





Next the Duomo (church). These pictures do not do this building justice. It was huge. Spencer and I decided to climb Brunelleschi's dome. Each section of this dome is self supporting and is a "dome with in a dome" (that is why we could climb it). It has 653 steps one way but the view was well worth the burn. Here are some pictures on the way up and the view from the top. You can see how close we are to the mural in the dome.








Our stop in Florence was short but well worth it. Next stop Roma!

The City of Water, Venezia!

After our 3 hour train ride from Milan we finally made it to our final destination for the day. As we walked out of the train station we all just stood there in ah. This is one of our first looks at the city A city on the water? Life here is so different everyone has a boat, the city buses are city boats, the garbage truck is a garbage boat, everything that usually has 4 wheels (or more) is on a boat. It was hard to imagine living here. We even saw the UPS man wheeling packages from his UPS boat up and down stairs and over bridges. Not to mention he had to yell to get everyone out of the way through a street that was barely big enough to wheel his cart (which only had about 15 small boxes on it). (Alan you should be grateful you don't live here.) Here is a picture of the farmers daily harvest. (on the boat of course)


We got on the crowded city boat to get to our hotel. These boats are about 80 feet long and you should see the way these bus boat drivers drive. They have to get right up to the entrance of the dock, let people off and then get people back on, go through a maze of other traffic and they make it look so easy.



We checked into our hotel and did not want to go to sleep as this is the best way to get over jet lag. Here are some pictures of our hotel. It was on a nice quiet street.




So we got ourselves cleaned up and back to the lobby. We asked our hotelier where a good place to eat dinner was. He gave us a few suggestions and off we went. As we went to each location much to our surprise everyone was closed. As we were not far from the hotel we went back to see what the problem was. Well our problem was that all of the good restaurants don't open until about 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. Well as we Americans soon found out, the Italian culture is much different then ours. So unable to eat until 7:00 we decided to walk the canals. On our walk we decided to take a gondola ride. Here are some pictures of the ride. The minute our gondolier found out Spencer knew Italian he did not stop talking. We asked him to sing but he said no because he would sound terrible. But he did give us a good history of Venice.



The next morning we went to St. Marks Square. It was really busy so we were only there for a short time. But with 3 photographers we got some good pictures of the sites.





Next was the Rialto Bridge, this bridge has shops all over it with just about everything you could think of buying. This picture does a good job of showing you what it is like.



Venice was one of our favorite cities. We loved that at night it was quiet (most of the tourists leave) and the water was so beautiful.

Milano

After 16 long hours of travel time we finally arrived in fashion capital of the world. Our stop in Milano was just for two reasons: one to meet Spencer's mission president and second to go to Venezia. President Caruso is living in Torino right now and was kind enough to meet us at the train station so that we could meet him. President Caruso is a native of Sicilia and was the first Sicilian mission president. Spencer was his second group of missionaries. President Caruso told me that I needed to make sure that I took care of his son. I could tell that he loved Spencer a lot and I promised him I would. If you look close you can see that President is wearing a Maltese tie. President Caruso got lunch for us and made sure that we got the right train tickets and were on the right train. It was so nice of him to come all that way to make sure we got where we needed to go. Here is a picture of our first of many train rides. As you can tell we look like we have been traveling for along time. Now off to Venezia..

We are home from Italy!

Wow! Well we are home from our 17 day run through Italy. This trip was such a great experience for our family. We have both come back home more grateful for all of the blessings that we have. Spencer served in the Catania Italy mission (this is the southern part of Italy and Sicily) and his knowledge and language skills were priceless, we could not have done this trip without him. Spencer's grandpa, mom and dad came with us. It was a lot of fun to have them all with us. Here is a picture of our transcontinental plane grandpa, spencer and I took. All 5 of us were able to use delta sky miles so we had to split up. Here we are on our flight from SLC to JFK. As you can see there were missionaries on the plane. It was a Wednesday. However, none of them went to Italy. :( Here Spencer and I are waiting in the JFK airport. Next time we fly to Europe we will opt for a different airport; JFK is a mess. We were in 10 different cities during those 17 days, so I have decided to blog about a different city each week. Now off to Milan...