I know there's tons of Italy photos, but all photos below are COPYRIGHTED and from my cousins Laurie and Steve's Italy photos.


Family Background
My cousins on my mom's side (they're my grandmother's sister's daughters) have relatives over there on their dad's side. They wanted to visit them and tour parts of the country etc., and invited other family members. Since I love traveling and had time and money, I jumped at the chance. My grandmother, who passed away in 2002, had left me a bit and I knew this was the way she'd want me to use it. So the trip was super sentimental too. Anyways. I went with my cousins and their families.

Plane Rides from Hell
I flew from Norfolk to Philly, met my cousins in Philly, and we took a Lufthansa plane from there to Frankfurt, Germany. Let me tell you, Trans-Atlantic plane rides are hell. Sitting on a plane, especially in an aisle seat with no one you know around to talk to, for hour and hours and hours - Un.Comfortable. The guy next to me was super nice, but it was really hard to sleep, and I really wanted to see out the window.

The time change on the plane was very disconcerting too. It was getting to be close to the Eastern Standard Bedtime, so the lights on the plane dimmed for a couple hours. After those couple of hours, the flight crew jumped right into that six hour ahead time change and blared the lights on and started serving breakfast. It was like one am EST or something. Totally weird and freaky.

Our flight from Philly to Frankfurt was late, so we literally had to run with an airport employee through the back paths of the airport to catch our flight to Venice. My brief and blurry view of the airport left me with impressions of dark colors, smoke, and an industrial-ish atmosphere. I wish I had seen more.

Venice!! My New Favorite Place
Our first stop was Venice for three days; we got there in their late morning-time I think. The weather was cloudy the whole time we were there.

Venice is the neatest city I've ever been to (so far). It's all these canals and bridges and really cool buildings, all colorful and antique-y and stucco. We saw St Mark's Square and its infamous pigeons, St. Mark's Cathedral, the Rialto Bridge (photo on right), most of the Grand Canal; we took a gondola ride (just incredible!!) through the more inner parts of the city; and we toured islands around Venice - Burano and Murano. There is so much cool architecture, I was just amazed. I mean so much detail to mosaics and sculptures and done without "modern" tools. Wow. It's so hard to really describe, but luckily my cousins put some of their pics online: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~steve/Italy/Venice/index.html




Gorgeous Tuscany
From Venice we drove a rental van through the mountains (sooo pretty) into Tuscany to the gorgeous Villa Paizano. We stayed there for a week and the weather was gray the whole time.

We visited several quaint little towns, most built with brick and stone with stone piazzas and small churches and such. Cortona, the town closest to the villa, even had a wall around it like something out of a fantasy book (photo on left). We went there several times, such as for dinner (real Italian food is delicious, and that's such an understatement). We also went to Siena, which has its own breathtaking Cathedral and Duomo; it was constructed of several different architectural styles so it has a very unique and gorgeous facade. Siena also has a piazza that's round and angled - the Piazza del Campos (photo below); there are horse races held there during the year.


The weekend we were there was Easter weekend.. a big deal in Italy naturally. On Easter Sunday and Monday, almost everything where we were was shut down except restaurants; the staff at the Villa made reservations for us for an Easter dinner. Easter "dinner" was really more like eating for an entire afternoon. There were about a thousand courses it seemed like, holy cow. Yummy tho. Have I mentioned how awesome the food is in Italy?!? LOL The day after Easter most places are also closed because it's the family day, like families go picnic at the lake or something. Which is basically what we did; we drove around and visited a large lake nearby.

The last few days of the week we went to a few other small towns, like Assisi, which also has a really gorgeous church.

My cousins' Tuscany pictures are at http://www.csh.rit.edu/~steve/Italy/Tuscany/index.html






Fascinating Rome!
Our last four days were spent in the spectacular city of Rome. Rome!!! Is awesome!! It's like a huge city built around ancient ruins. And as understatement of my life so far - Rome is so different than any major city I've been to in the states. There really weren't any suburbs, most of the living spaces were like apartments above stores. The apartment complex where my cousins' relatives lived in Rome was a two bedroom, living room, dining room place and three people lived there (their aunts and uncle). Their other aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in some of the other apartments in that same building. We stayed in a hotel right across the street from them, so we stayed more in the residential section of Rome rather than the "touristy" part.


We saw so much while we were in Rome, here's a partial laundry list: Coliseum (of course! I took like two rolls of film there), Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Arch of Constantine, Trajen's Column (and other things you find in art history books), Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, several Piazzas like the Piazza del Popolo, lots of "little" churches, the Pantheon, etc. We even went to a freaking mall and ate at a McDonald's - my cousin's son Sam was 12 and he was in that Mickey D's stage.

Probably the most eventful "visit" was to The Vatican and St. Peter's Square - we were there the Friday of the weekend when the Pope fell very ill (and passed away on Sunday, may he rest in peace). So it was even more crazy there than usual, there were reporters from all over, the crowds grew every hour.

While Venice is the most unique city I've ever been to so far, Rome is the most fascinating city I've ever been to so far. Pics at http://www.csh.rit.edu/~steve/Italy/Rome/index.html


Ok, so, I think that about sums it up. I'm sure I left off tons of stuff, but it was such a jam packed two weeks that if I wrote about every minute, I'd have a freaking novel and carpal tunnel to boot.