drum roll please...

family and friends,

italy has come and gone and we were fortunate enough to see so much. we consider ourselves very lucky to have visited a place so vast with history. many of you have been asking about it, and really, we could write individual entries about the food or the history or the art alone, but to save attention spans, we'll keep it to one post, although it will be long. so here is our trip, day by day:

friday-
when we stepped off our plane from our two hour flight into rome, we literally had no idea how to get to our hostel, so naturally, we got lost on our way. after riding the trams, trains, buses, and walking around the city, we eventually put our pride aside and got a taxi. with a steep fee, he successfully took us to our destination. after we got settled in our tiny room which housed 6 other people, we went out into the city to find food. our first meal was delicious: scrumptous pizza and pasta. after dinner we got gelato. italian gelato is fantastic, and we got it at least once a day. what amazed us on the first day was our frequent and random stumblings upon crazy ruins which are mixed in with more modern buildings all throughout the city.

saturday-
queues are very common when attempting to get into the vatican, so when we walked there, we were greeted by a line took us about 2 hours to get through. waiting in the line was worth it however, since we got to see some the most amazing art that has ever been created. as we walked through the vatican, we saw numerous sculptures, busts, and paintings from before even jesus' time. it was filled with renaissance art by leonardo, michaelangelo, raphael, and donatello. basically we hung out with the pope and the ninja turtles all day. cowabunga! at the end our tour through the museum, we found ourselves in the sistine chapel which took michaelangelo 8 years to complete. we were truly awestruck when we stepped into the room that was covered in depictions of biblical stories. taking pictures was strictly forbidden in the sistine chapel. however, we had to snap a few before getting yelled at by the chapel security.







following the vatican, we strolled over to st. peter's basilica which is a gigantic, overwhelming church with mile high ceilings and numerous works of art. when we first entered the church, we accidentally stumbled upon the basement where all of the deceased popes were held in their tombs. many people were paying their respect to their past catholic leaders. although it wasn't as meaningful for us, it was still very interesting to see the veneration of the individuals towards the popes. however, what blew us away was the tomb of peter. PETER!?! we were pretty dumbfounded to know that one of the most popular biblical figures was laying before us. the rest of our time at st. peter's was spent wandering around the cathedral, admiring it's beauty.







sunday-
we woke up early (although we did everyday) and made our way over to the area with the most concentrated ruins: the roman forum. on our way, we randomly ran into the spot where julius ceasar was murdered. from the morning to the early afternoon, we roamed around (pun intended) some of the oldest buildings and structures in the world. the roman forum leads up to palatine hill, which is where the first settlement in italy occurred. that means that we were walking through structures that are some 3-4,000 years old. it was really cool because although the buildings no longer have roofs, they still have walls and you can clearly see how the set up of houses, churches, and other institutions looked. it was hard to imagine people just like us living their daily lives in these places.



finally, at the end of the ruins stands the ever so popular coliseum. it was huge! much larger than we had imagined. finished in 80 AD, it is truly remarkable that this building still stands. we spent some time outside just staring at it, but eventually we went inside to take a look. it was so cool to see all the detail and to try and imagine animals, gladiators and christians fighting in the arena below. they had part of the floor of the arena removed so that you could see below where the animal cages where kept and where the other chambers existed. it was one of the most remarkable things we saw.





monday-
this was another history-filled day for us. we started by going to the piazza navona, a famous town square where many artists and vendors were selling their work. next we passed the tower that was erected in honor of marcus aurelius, it was quite detailed. we also visited the famous trevy fountain, although apparently someone had spilled red paint in the fountain the day before, so the fountain was emptied and being cleaned. it lacked a little luster. next, we visited the spanish steps- a popular meeting point for both toursits and locals alike for years passed. finally, we ended our afternoon with the pantheon, which was the largest dome in the world before the invention of reinforced concrete in the 20th century. it is the best preserved building of it's time- built in 27 BC. the circle and the dimensions of the dome are so perfect that to this day, they do not know how they achieved this without modern technology. it also holds the tomb of raphael and many other italian kings.





that night, we had our first evening to spend just the two of us, so we had a nice dinner and walked around the city a bit. it was very nice.

tuesday-
we were both excited to see the countryside, so when it came time to board our train to florence we had high expectations. during our ride, a train attendant came up to us and checked our tickets. suddenly he started lecturing us in italian, so we were both very confused. he eventually spoke in english and told us that we didn't stamp our tickets and we could face a possible 50 euro ($75) fine each. luckily he had mercy on us, but it was quite a scare. once we arrived in florence, we got delicious pizza at a nearby restaurant. italian style pizza is very thin and uses less sauce than american pizza. it's very tasty.

wednesday-
on wednesday, we went to the santa croce which held the tombs of many prominent italians, namely michaelangelo and galileo. it also housed a sculpture by donatello and many renaissance pieces. following the santa croce, we got lunch at a place called mario's. mario's is an authentic italian eatery, with noisy locals and a busy, but endearing staff mainly consisting of family members. the meal was so good that we broke our "no eating at the same restaurant more than once" rule and ate there twice. afterwards we went to the duomo which is one of the world's largest cathedrals. the building was beautifully decorated with stained glass windows by donatello. then we went to the accademia which was one of our most favorite places in florence because it displayed michaelangelo's famous david sculpture.







thursday-
we took a day trip with our good friend bradley from florence to pisa to visit the leaning tower of pisa. it was a lot of fun to take silly pictures, and the tower leaned more than we thought! it was one of our more relaxing days. also worth mentioning is the fact that we set out specifially to find a good canoli to eat that day. we were successful. we also visited the pitti palace, the home of the medici family.





friday-
friday we woke even earlier than normal because we had a reservation at the uffizi gallery- without reservations the wait is 2-3 hours to get in. so we arrived only to learn that the national gallery workers had gone on strike and the gallery was closed for the day. we were upset, so we boosted our spirits by going to mario's again. that afternoon, just the two of us travelled back to rome for the evening, and we walked to the coliseum at night. we managed to find a reasonable restaurant with a great view of the coliseum, and it was a wonderful way to end our trip.

saturday-
the next morning we flew back to prague. when we arrived we stepped out of the airport, happy to be back on familiar ground.

wow. so that was pretty long. i'm guessing not everyone read it all, but hopefully they looked at our pictures. we loved our stay in italy and had a blast with john and bradley.

this weekend we leave the country once more to go to poland to visit auschwitz. we think it will be a pretty heavy trip. nevertheless, we are very excited.

we love you all and look forward to seeing you in about a month and a half!

d&a

p.s. we have a lot more photos, so when we get home, we'll show you the rest. and if you have any questions, ask!