Siena, Itay

When we were on a train from Rome to Florence, we met a very nice couple that lived in Italy. They said if we truly want to see the heart of Tuscany, go to Siena. So we decided while we were in Florence, to take a day trip to Siena. It was worth it! Even though all the adorable shops ended up being closed (it was a Sunday), it was a beautiful city that we loved. Siena is a medieval town that is entirely closed in by a huge wall. We took a train and then decided to walk up the big hill to the entrance. Below are a couple of pictures of the wall surrounding the city.

As we were walking up the hill-it started to snow!! See the snow in my hair?? So fun!

Going into the city...notice the bus coming out of the little doorway-the doorway still has these huge wooden doors that are on the inside.

Here we are in the Piazza del Campo in the middle of the city.

Since none of the shops were opened, we decided to sit in a cafe and watch the snow fall while drinking coffee (Garth) and hot cocoa (Vanessa). FYI-if you're ever in Italy, don't get the hot cocoa. It tastes like the just melted a candy bar and put it in a cup. It was so thick that if you didn't drink it right away a thick layer would form ontop! Gross!!

Snow!!

Siena has a fantastic annual horse race that takes place each summer in the Piazza del Campo. Siena is broken into 17 neighborhoods and they all have their own mascot and emblem. They each have their own horseman that represents their neighborhood and they all race each other. People from each neighborhood wave their flag and have clothes with their neighborhood emblem. We would have loved to witness this! It is supposed to be amazing.

Piazza del Campo

Duomo in Siena

City streets of Siena

Not only does each neighborhood have their own horseman and emblem, but they have lampposts that represent them. They are all different from one another. Each neighborhood has their own colors and the emblem on a wall.

This was the "caterpillars" neighborhood and their lamppost is below.

Goodbye Siena! We will miss you!

Florence, Italy

Stop 2-Florence

We arrived in beautiful Florence and we definitely realized we had traveled north in Italy. It was so much colder and it was very windy! I think I wore my bini, scarf, and gloves at all times, everyday. On the first day in Florence, we went to the Academia, the museum where Michaelangelo's scuplture of "David" is. It was absolutely incredible! We couldn't take pictures otherwise I would have them on here for you to see. David was breathtaking. The statue was much larger than I had expected and it was amazing to see the detail that Michaelangelo put into him. We were in awe of this amazing piece of art. Later that evening, we decided to explore Florence. Below is the Duomo (main cathedral) in Florence. The outside is completely made of marble. It was amazing!!

A lot of the side streets in Florence had beautiful lights strung above them. It was so charming. We loved walking down all the streets getting lost in the city.

Here is Florence at nighttime along the river. I don't know who that person is bending over the side!

GELATO! Yummy, yummy! Gelato is a piece of art in Italy. Look how detailed and beautiful it is. Each flavor was decorated with toppings that made your mouth water. Perhaps it was good that we were there when it was freezing cold, otherwise we would've been eating too much of this!

All over Florence, there were beautiful, quaint little outdoor cafe's. They would be in all of the square's and they are so enticing when you walk by. However, that was a bummer about being there in the very cold of winter (it was around 0 degrees celcius while we were there, sometimes hitting 2 degrees if we were lucky!)-we wanted to eat inside where we could thaw off.

Ponte Vecchio bridge was covered with jewelery stores (the only type of store on the bridge). At night, they would close up their doors and this is what they looked like. I thought they were so cool. Not the normal doors and storefronts you would expect!

I took this picture because it reminded me of my mom (Celeste).

Palazzo Vecchio

One day we decided to climb to the top of the Duomo. We thought it would be cool to see the city from the top, but we also thought it would be nice to warm up by climbing 360-something steps. This picture was taken from about the half-way point. We were still inside the Duomo and it's looking down into the church.

These were the stairs we climbed. You get kind of dizzy because it's a winding stairwell. There's only one way to go up and one way to go down-so if you plan on going, you can't stop and change your mind!

This is looking down the side of the top of the Duomo.

Here is the happy couple ontop of the Duomo. Florence was beautiful to see from this view!

Florence

These are the apartments/homes alongside the river near the Ponte Vecchio Bridge.

This is the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. It is the oldest of the 6 bridges in Florence.

On our last day in Florence, we took a trek up a hill to see an area dedicated to Michaelangelo's work. We climbed a lot of hills and stairs, but boy was the view worth it!!

Here's the fanastic view of Florence. It was such a gorgeous day-still cold, but gorgeous!

This is a view of the hillside-unbelievable.

Here is an upclose picture of the top of the Duomo that we took with our ultra-zoom lense. This is where we climbed to the top. Can you see the little people right above the red roof? That's where we were.

Another view of Florence and the Duomo.

The Ponte Vecchio Bridge

Italy-Rome

Here it is!! I know I've had a lot of family and friends that haven't seen our pictures, so after going through the 1,2oo that we have, I've done my best to narrow it down and show you some of our favorites.

Garth and I have always wanted to go to Europe. We talked about it since we were dating. We decided that after the Navy we would go on a fun vacation. Well, 4 years of the Navy went by fast and we planned our trip to Italy! We went over Christmas break, so we were able to spend Christmas and New Year's abroad. It was so special and romantic to have this time together in an amazing destination! I decided to post one city at a time. Rome was the first city we went to and the city we have the most pictures from!

The trip started out on the wrong foot. As we arrived in Paris, we found out that our connecting flight to Rome had been cancelled-due to a strike at the Rome airport. The airline in Paris was not helpful at all and told us that they didn't know when the strike would be lifted-maybe that day, maybe not. So we sat at the front of the desk with a crowd of unhappy people for 5 hours waiting to hear what was going to happen. Being that their announcements were in French, we were a little frustrated! We decided after 5 hours that we would take an overnight train to Rome instead. We ran to the ticket counter and got some of the last seats on the train and then went to get our luggage. Oh, that's right-they lost our luggage!! They couldn't find it and were sending us all around the Paris airport. We had 1 hour until the train left. We waited and waited and then we got our luggage 20 minutes before we had to leave, so we were the couple running through the airport to the opposite side to get to the train station on time. Then we had to take an overnight train for 16 hours in a little room that we shared with 3 other people. Luckily they were all younger people-a doctor and then 2 people on their honeymoon. Garth hit it off with the doctor. They went and got wine for us and we enjoyed talking with him (he spoke English pretty well, the honeymooners did not!). Looking back, it was a great experience and we wouldn't have changed it. However, we did loose a day in Rome which was unfortunate. I feel like I could've spent a week in Rome and still missed a lot of things. There was so much to see and do!

ROME:

Here I am on our first day in Rome with our first (of too many) piece of pizza. We are walking on a bridge that goes over the Tiber River.

This is us standing in front of Vatican City. That is St. Peter's Basilica behind us.

We took a tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel (below), and St. Peter's Basilica. It was amazing!! One of my favorite pictures of all time is Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam." I was in awe when I got to see the real thing!! This is the picture. Michelangelo's art work was unbelievable and I could've stayed in there for hours looking at all the intricate details.

COLOSSEO

These guys asked us if we wanted our picture taken. We said sure, how much? They said a small tip. So we took several pictures and then they told us to pay them 20 euro each for the picture...we didn't do that!! We gave them a tip and said thank you!

The inside of the Colosseum was incredible. This was probably my favorite place to visit. It was incredible to stand inside and imagine what had taken place there. You can see where the platform would be on left. It would cover all of the rooms below. Prisoners and animals would be below the stage and they would bring them up for the fights. Also, if you look on the bottom of the picture you can see the top of a cross (where people are standing). This is where Julius Caesar would sit to watch the shows! Absolutely incredible!!

Below is a good picture of the walkways and rooms where the prisoners and animals would be held.

This is the cross where Julius Caesar sat at during the shows. Garth took this incredible shot!

Arch of Constantine- This monument was dedicated to Constantine and is right between the Colosseum and Palentine Hill. He was the first emperor to stop persecuting Christians and because of him, Christianity became the official religion in Rome.

Palentine Hill and the Forum

On these hills across from the Colosseum is where Romulus and Remus lived. They built their homes out of complete marble-the floor, the ceiling, the walls-they called it the white palace. There were still remnants of the marble on the ground that we were able to walk on and touch. This is an arena where they would have horse races.

They had a ton of huge marble statues-here is a foot (and pinkie toe) of one of them. Imagine how huge it must have been!!

The Pantheon

There's Garth on the bottom left with the black jacket and khakis.

Christmas Day

We were so blessed to have the opportunity to hear the Pope speak on Christmas day. He did a mass inside St. Peter's Basilica (we didn't have tickets to go inside) and then he came out and gave a blessing to the crowd. We got there early and had amazing seats. He gave the message in Italian, but then gave a blessing to everyone in about 20 languages. It was very impressive. Even with our great seats, he was still so high, and with our big zoom lens, he still is really little!

That little window with the red curtains is where he came out to speak to everyone.

This is the front of the basilica. That is a nativity scene that they unveiled Christmas morning. It had been covered the other days we were there.

There were a ton of boarding school children from all over the world there. They were singing songs and having a great time. These kids were from Spain. We also saw a group from Ireland. They had their country's flag and they would wave it around. They also waved it when the Pope said the blessing in Spanish. It was cool.

There were several military bands that came marching in before the Pope spoke. They did a parade down the street beforehand.

This is when the Pope said the blessing at the very end.

Look at the thousands of people that were there to see him speak.

Fontana de Trevi

This fountain was amazing! It was as big as a building. It was so beautiful to see.
On Christmas night, our last night in Rome, we had dinner at a restaurant outside of the Colosseum and during dinner it rained. Afterwards, we took some fun pictures of the Colosseum at night. It was lit up beautifully!!