Back From Rome!
Posted Wednesday, May 05th, 2010 at 4:54pmIt was supposed to be a 16 day trip to Italy but Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic Volcano, put a stop to that. So it turned into a 7-day trip to Italy and I have got to say I packed two weeks of fun into one week. I had a great time dashing about between four cities (Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Cortona), eating as much gelato as possible.
I had 5 days with my dear friend Jill:
and I loved having such a fun, knowledgeable, sweet travel companion.
Here are some snapshots I took:
Lunch in Cinque Terre:
I guess I really do eat twice as much as a Jill! I am eating a seafood salad and stuffed mussels. I ate every last drop that I could sponge up with my bread.
Jill and I rented a car and went to Cinque Terre even though we only could stay there 4 hours. It was worth it! It is a collection of five towns on the Mediterranean that are all connected by stunning walking paths:
Look what I found in one of the tiny towns: Obama!
There were beautiful stones on Cinque Terre's beaches:
I packed my bags with a few handfuls of stones. I absolutely loved being able to photograph sand and water in the Mediterranean! (I'll be posting more water pictures from this trip in the near future.)
I got to swim in the Mediterranean! A dream of mine! Here is a big outcropping of rocks that I swam around:
Jill was very patient because I did not come to Italy with a bathing suit and we spent at least one hour of our four looking for swimming trunks.
Here's an essential "before" and "after" that was a core theme of the trip: Cappuccino!
Before:
After:
I like this picture of our barista:
You can just make him out on the right.
Here is another before and after:
Before:
After:
The next two pictures are from Cortona - a stunning walled Medieval city high on a hill.
A trip to Italy would not be complete without a visit to the Colosseum:
I like this picture because the people give you some idea of the scale.
It was poignant and thought-provoking to see the the Arch of Titus which clearly shows the Romans parading the spoils of war including a menorah-looking candelabra:
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Here is a link to more information about it:link.
Here's a photo of some of the ruins in the Roman Forum:
I got a kick out of this huge, distressed pinky-toe:
On my last day in Rome I explored a wonderful collection of Roman art. Here are a few snapshots. (I'll be posting more of my photos later that I took of Roman statues in this museum.)
A doll!
A beautiful inlay:
Birds:
A face:
Thus concludes my snapshot blogpost. More photos to come.
Christina Wrote on Wednesday, May 05th, 2010 at 8:22pm
stunning! I'm still stuck on the steak gelato on the right in the first picture though;.I think I love the meals best of all.