Anniversary Trip to Italy

On our last full day in Italy, we got up in Amalfi and headed north to Rome to return our car, but on the way we decided to stop in Pompeii. It was so unexpectedly cool. The city was originally built by the ancient Greeks, then taken over by the Romans, so some of the buildings we stood in were actually 2,500 years old and possibly older and the preservation of the city frozen in time by a volcano eruption was really unbelievable. Jason kept saying how everyone should have to visit Pompeii in their lives because it’s just an experience that you could never teach. If we thought in Rome old was “old”, in Pompeii it left your mouth wide open. We never expected it to be so large or so well preserved. It was a full city and we visited a bank, a bakery, a brothel, a bar, someone’s home, the town centers, a Christian Basilica, Egyptian temple, a Roman temple… it was a cosmopolitan port city that catered to everyone and had everything. There were pipes that brought running water into people’s shops and homes and beautiful mosaics on the floors of the homes. The casts of real people frozen in motion and emotion as the lava swallowed them was chilling. It’s only 75% excavated so far and we only took in a fraction of that, but we left totally impressed and satisfied.

We turned in our car in Rome and sat in a bar overlooking the Coliseum and had some beer and paninis before boarding our sleeper train back to Venice, where we woke up and had some coffee and pastries and said goodbye to Italy as our water taxi took us to the airport. I

t was a long 10 hour flight home, but if you can travel on long, intercontinental flights in first class, do it because those seats that lay flat were more comfortable than the sleeper train beds.


I don’t know if you can tell, but we loved Italy and we are already planning our next trip back. But our next big stop is Turkey, so tune in for that trip report next…..

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Anniversary Trip to Italy

Our second full day in Rome was devoted mostly to Vatican City. Again we took a tour because we really could have been overwhelmed with all there was to see, so our guide took us to the major sights and taught us a few things we never would have known.

In the Vatican Museum, the church gathered some of the greatest art from not only it’s time, but also great ancient greek and roman statues and fountains. At one time, the Pope had Michaelangelo painting the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel while Raphael was painting murals on the walls of the Pope’s residences, they would walk through the ancient sculpture gardens for inspiration for their own works that you could actually see very clearly.

The Sistine Chapel was a very emotional experience for me. I studied it in college and I don’t think I ever thought I would actually ever see it in person, yet here it was, more awe inspiring than I had ever imagined. Jason had to pry me out of there and as we descended the steps out, I had to work hard at keeping myself from sobbing. It was indescribably moving.

Jason was most impressed by Raphael’s room where he painted mural after mural, room after room, telling us stories and giving us history lessons.

St. Peter’s Basilica was nothing short of jaw dropping. It was huge and impressive – as was the creator’s intention.



We left Vatican City and saw a few more sights in Rome and walked around marveling at this city build on top of a city and just couldn’t get our heads around just how old “old” can be.

Anniversary Trip to Italy

Today was devoted to ancient Rome.

We walked to the Coliseum and took a guided tour that included the Coliseum and the Forum. This was so cool. We stood with goosebumps at the very place where democracy was born. You really got a sense of everything amazing that humankind was capable of here. The creation of a senate that would be building blocks of our system of government, the language that would become the basis the western world’s languages for the rest of time, art that would inspire the great Renaissance artists, buildings whose columns and domes would be copied all over the world. The spectacle of the Coliseum, that was essentially their version of television and movies – distract the masses and learn about heroes and villains in reenactments. What a day.

For more pictures, visit flikr...

Anniversary Trip to Italy

On the next day we boarded a train to Rome. The train was remarkably comfortable and we had a gorgeous view of Tuscany as we sped by playing cards and reading.

We arrived in Rome by mid afternoon and got right out to see the city. We walked down the Spanish Steps, visited the house where John Keats (my favorite poet) died, saw the Pantheon, and threw change into the Trevi fountain.

What a crazy place, every corner you turned down had another beautiful fountain or statue or building. They had fountains just tucked into the sides of buildings. It was so fun just walking and exploring.

For more pictures, visit flikr...