A Day in Paradise...

After 2 days of the madness of Naples, I was ready to escape to the calm and beauty of the island of Ischia, a 1-hour ferry ride away. While we never made it to this castle, we enjoyed this view from the little beach cafe that we hung out at for the day. At first glance we thought the beach was covered in trash, but were happy to discover it was mostly sea glass, which made for a great souvenir along with local limoncella (a lemon liqueur best served chilled).

Lesson from History--Don't Live Under an Active Volcano

While Jimmy was busy working in Naples, I took the girls to Pompeii, my favorite place we visited during the week in Italy. It's hard to describe how amazing it was to walk down the streets of this ancient Roman city. This photo was taken in the Forum, which was the main business and political area of the city. We especially loved seeing mosaics and frescoes in their original locations after almost 2,000 years (we saw many others the following day in the Museum Archaeological in Naples). This place is truly immense and we made it through less than half in the several hours that we were there; definitely somewhere worth visiting again. Luckily we made it back to the train right before the skies opened up.

A Dome with a View...

A trip to Rome isn't complete without a visit to the Vatican. Unfortunately, the line to the Vatican Museum was ridiculously long, so we missed seeing the Sistine Chapel. Instead we climbed the 320-stairs to the top of the dome of St Peter's Basilica (completed in 1593) where we saw a fantastic view of Rome. Then we explored the inside of the Basicila, which was definitely the most spectacular church we've ever seen. We did postcards sitting by a fountain in St Peter's Square (wonder what GGMa thought about that Pope stamp), then visited neighboring Castel Sant'Angelo, which you may have read about in Dan Brown's "Angel & Demons".

When in Rome, Do as the Romans...

Of course, that statement's open to interpretation. As fun as a public bath or toga party might have been, we stuck to the usual overindulgences -- chianti, pizza and gelato. In fact, we made it a goal to find the best gelato in Rome and despite having to eat it everyday, I'm happy to report we found it near the Colosseum.
Rather than live like tourists, we lived like modern day Romans by renting an apartment from a family at our school. It was great having the extra space and seeing what a typical neighborhood was like.

Love that Water!

It's impossible not to love Trevi Fountain. The newest tourist site we visited, the fountain was completed in 1762 after 30 years. This photo doesn't even begin to capture the beauty of this magical place. Despite being surrounded by tourists tossing coins over their shoulders (if you do it the right way you're ensured a return trip to the Eternal City), it was easy to be mesmerized by the force of the water as commanded by Neptune and two Tritons with seahorses. We especially loved the drinking fountain on the side that had the best water we'd ever tasted. Although Rome has more trash than we'd expected, it has amazingly clean water with many historic drinking fountains.

The Colosseum...

While we enjoyed seeing the outside of the Colosseum at all different times of the day, we only saw the inside once during a tour (we're not big tour fans, but this one was worth the price because we got to skip the long lines). It truly is spectacular and an engineering marvel. Amazingly, it took 20,000 slaves just 8 years to build this stadium for over 50,000 spectators. In an effort to appease the public who were upset over high taxes, the Emperor offered free fights of gladiators (surprisingly, both men and women) and wild animals (lions, hippos, elephants and zebras). The ground was covered in sand to help soak up the blood. The two floors below ground housed the slaves and animals. The stadium was greatly damaged by quakes in the 400's after the gladiator combats were banned. While today the ruins are mostly exposed brick, originally everything was covered in marble. Much of the marble was recycled by the Popes and can be seen in St. Peter's Basilica.

A Dream Comes True...

When we started talking about the idea of moving to Europe, we asked the girls where they'd like to visit. Ashlynn said Iceland because she'd seen some thermal pools on TV that looked really cool. Veronica didn't even hesitate to say she wanted to go to Rome to see the Colosseum since she loves digging in the dirt and dreams of being an archaeologist. While we hope to go to both places eventually, we figured it would be in a few years. Lucky us that Jimmy was sent on a business trip to Lisbon then Naples routed thru Rome that just happened to fall during a week holiday from school. With just 12 days to plan, we were able to put together 4 nights in Rome and 3 nights in Naples. We also managed to see the Colosseum 4 times, which really made Veronica's dreams come true.