Trip to Rome

ROMA - ROME

One of the last places we went to while Kjerstin was still here was Rome. It was nice to see it again after not having been there for a few years.

Here are some of the places that we went while there.

Below is the Fontana di Trevi or Trevi's Fountain-

Here it is again when we went back at night-

Of course one of the next things that I need to post pictures of is the Colosseo or Colosseum, it was one of the last things we saw before dark but I am kind of putting things in random order and not the order that we went to them. The picture directly below is actually huge of the Colosseum if you click on it-

Below you can see the area underneath the arena floor where they would send the animals or people up from on elevators or even change the scenery from below by creating hills or trees etc that would pop up out of the floor-

And here you can see how the floor covered up the underground passages-

Before heading to the Colosseum we went and saw all the ruins nearby and the Prison where Peter and Paul where imprisoned in Rome and tied to the Pillar shown below-

And here is a shot of the prison from the outside. It has now been turned into a type of memorial to Peter and Paul as they are both believed to have been martyred in Rome-

Ruins near the prison-


Other memorable places that can't be left out of this blog from our trip to Rome are:

Sistine Chapel-

Other parts of the Museum of the Vatican which also contains the Sistine Chapel-

The Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spagna-

Night shot of the Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spagna-

The Vatican-

Castel Sant'angelo-


Piazza Venezia-


My sister Kjerstin and then Me in the pics below still at Piazza Venezia-

MEMORY from trip to Rome with Alessandra in December 2004-Taken in front of the same fountain as the one above-


Night shot of the Altare della Patria in Piazza Venezia

Bocca della Verita' - The mouth of Truth below - if you stick your hand in it and tell a lie then you can't get your hand back out-

Still got a few more places to post from my time off in August for the Holidays in Italy that I will have to get posted in the next few days.

Glass Blowing in Venice

This video is of a demonstration we watched of how they blow vases and animals out of glass on the Island of Murano in Venice. The guy makes a vase first and then makes a small horse out of glass. It is pretty impressive what they do there with glass. If you go to Venice you should go to the Island of Murano to see this!

5 Terre with Mom and Kjerstin

The 5 Terre are about a half hour north of us up the Coast. It is all marine protected waters so the water is crystal clear with lots of fish. 5 Terre means 5 lands and is called that because there are 5 little cities along the cliffs.

It is usually better weather than the day we went but this video should still give you an idea how pretty of a place it is.

We took the train up there one of the days while my mom and Kjerstin were still here.

Kjerstin is on her way back

Well after a really fun trip Kjerstin is on her way back to Utah in her new car.........

We loved having her and mom here for some fun vacation time.

I will try and get pictures of the other places we went to posted in the next week or so.

Alessandra just got the rest of the Twighlight books in the mail so I guess I will be posting on my own for the next couple weeks. We are also giving the first one to her grandma to read in Italian so I will have to let you know how that goes.

Le mail ti raggiungono ovunque con BlackBerry® from Vodafone!

Venice

On Monday, Me, Alessandra and Kjerstin went to Venice. We drove there in the morning and then went directly to the Island Murano where they make all the blown glass. Then we headed to Piazza San Marco and then spent the rest of the day just wandering around looking at everything.

Here are a few pics from our trip. Below is riding along the river in the water bus on the way to Murano-


These are some of the cool things they make on the Island of Murano blowing the glass-


After we were done at Murano we took the Waterbus over to Piazza San Marco and had a good time walking around and seeing everything.

Here is Alessandra and Kjerstin in front of one of the myriad of bridges over the canals and a few other pics from our trip to Venezia-

Twilight

This is about all I have seen of Alessandra ever since my Mom gave her this book. I wake up in the morning to see a Maglite that I forgot we had and her book sitting by the side of the bed because she is reading it in every spare minute.

I guess all of the rest of you who have read the Vampire books can appreciate this. For those of us who haven't it is amazing to see how much you can enjoy a book about Vampires.

Lucca

On Monday, myself, Alessandra, my Mom and Kjerstin went to Lucca. Lucca is a medieval city about 30 minutes from where we live . The entire city is surrounded by a big wall from medieval times. A random fact from Lucca is that there are 99 Churches there.

This is the famous ancient Roman Amphitheater in Lucca. All the houses from a circle so that they could all watch the shows or plays in the middle.

This is what the city looks like from the outside-


If you look close at the picture below you can see Alessandra, Kjerstin and my Mom on top of the wall. This kind of gives you a better idea of how tall the wall is-

Here i a few shots from the churches there-

This is the Roman Amphitheater in Lucca below-


While we were there we climbed to the top of a XIII Century tower and got a view of the whole city from there at the top of the tower. Where you see the row of trees is where the wall is surrounding the city-

Here is my Mom, Alessandra and Kjerstin taken from on top of the tower-

And again from on top of the wall of the city-

After we got done in Lucca we drove back to near where we live and went up to my Boss's house for a quick snakc and to introduce my Mom and Kjerstin to my Boss, Matteo and his wife, Barbara.
As you can see he has a beautiful view from his house of our Valley so we sat and ate some snacks with him and his wife on their porch and then watched the sunset before heading home-