Bonjorno from Italy

Hi All. Well after a nightmareish 15 hour flight to Dubai (no leg room at all, a 3.5 hour stopover in Dubai (Terminal 3 is amazing- gold stores, Duty Free, Brand name stores, huge fountain, mammoth elevators!!) and then a 6 hour flight we finally landed in Rome at 1.30pm Thursday Rome time. What can I say about Rome.....it is absolutely fantastic!! 2 days are just not enough...we only just scratched the surface...Trevi Fountain (about 500 metres down the road from out Hotel), Piazza Venieza, Colosseum, Platine Hill, the Roman Forum....amazing. We dropped out bags off at the hotel (which is decorated with antiques and fabric covered walls & doors)and headed out to the Trevi Fountain which is much bigger than we thought it would be although the actual square where it is located is tiny and there were 100's of people there. We threw our coins in the fountain and had our first authentic Italian pizza at a tiny shop just off the square...delicious!! Much different to what we call pizza in Aus. Then we wandered around and found ruins, monuments and ended up at Piazza Venezia with its ruins 20 ft below ground level and the most beautiful building that house the military (according to our transfer driver). Sunday we had our tour of the Vatican in the morning. Of course when we got there the ticketing machines were not working and our guide (who is an archeologist at the vatican and only does 2 tours a weeks)was most upset as she had a special pass to get us in quickly (due to who she is) and she couldn't use it and we had to line up with the hundreds of other tour groups...the line went for 500 metres and it kept getting longer as more and more groups arrived. There was another line on the other side for people who hadn't pre purchased tickets and it was even longer !!
The Vatican is unbelieveable !! The Statues, tapestries, frescos etc are something to behold. The Sistine Chapel was very beautiful (our guide Rosa was taught by the Monsignor who renovated the Sistine..there is one square of black in the top right hand corner that shows you what the frescos looked like before they were restored). Apparently the Monsignors whole hand was as big as half of one eye on the face of Jesus Christ..thats how big the actual paintings are. They took Michaelangelo 4 years to paint and Pope Julius 11 did not ever pay him for his time or the materials ! St Pauls is huge and very very beautiful too.

We then caught the double decker bus and did the tourist loop and hopped off at the Colesseum. We paid E20 each to go on a guided tour which included Platine Hill and the Roman Forum. The Colessum is huge. You can almost smell the gladiators and the slaves and the privileged Romans ! Plantine Hill is where the Emperors and the very very rich built there palaces. It is very beautiful and looks of a lot of Rome. The whole of the ruins of the Roman Forum are laid our below Platine Hill. It was after 6pm by the time we had finished there and we caught the Red bus back through peak hour Roman traffic which has to be seen to be believed ! It is organised chaos ! There are 10 million (no exaggeration) scooters & vespers and they zoom in and out of the traffic, up on the side walks anywhere they want. Cars double park anywhere, they park on corners, and the Smart cars park sideways !!

Saturday we went out the Civitevecchia to the cruise ship. Its huge, much bigger than our ship in Alaska. Yesterday we went to Canne on the French Riviera. The Canne Movie festival was on and there were paparattzi everywhere. We didnt get to see anyone famous....but there were plenty of beautiful people...or they thought they were anyway...lol. In the afternoon we had a tour along the Cote d zure all the way out to San Raphael. The coastline is beautiful, although Aus still has the best beaches in the world !!

Today we are in Livorne Italy and went for a tour to Lucca a medieval town just out of Florence. We passed Pisa and saw the Leaning Tower. Lucca is a walled town, one of the only original walled cities left. It was very vey old and the buildings were amazing. Tomorrow we will be in Naples and going to Pompeii and for a hike on Mt Vesuvius...should be interesting...so long as it doesnt erupt while we are on it !! lol. Will post some photos later. Ciao