...and Italy

By the way, here's a picture from the Santorini sunset:

All the water you see used to be a volcano!

So we left for Florence after two weeks in Greece. When we arrived, we found our hotel pretty easily. The main train station is right next to a big ole cathedral called the Santa Maria Novella. It is right on a square that is right next to our hotel. So our hotel was right next to the main train station for all of Tuscany, how convenient! On our 2nd day in Florence we decided to see the Uffizi Gallery, which is probably the main museum in Florence. We had to wait in line for 3 hours! And I bet we were only in the gallery for no more than 2 hours. It was still tight though. I've never seen a building so ornately decorated, but I'm not going to say anything because you have to see it yourself and wait in the long line. Get there before 9am, which is when we got there. The most famous painting in the gallery is this one, the Birth of Venus. It's good and all, but I don't understand why its so famous. I felt that way about a lot of the paintings actually. Perhaps it was an impressive piece considering the time period. I have no idea. If you have an idea, comment away! Florence was a very artistic city and most of the attractions had to do with architecture and art. The best part of Florence was this one restaurant that we went to twice. For a total of 12 euros, you could get a 1/4 liter of house wine, a pasta dish, a meat dish, and a side of vegetable. It was recommended to us by the hotel owner. It was so good. The first time I went I got a pasta dish with the best pesto I've ever had for my first course and roast rabbit for my 2nd course. Thumper was delicious!

While we were in Florence, we also took 2 day trips. We went to Pisa...

and then we went to another town called Luca which has a "ring" of park around the old city. I wish we had a bike so we could bike around the whole city. Every town we went to in Italy had a main cathedral that was uniquely different from any other we had seen. Florence, of course, had several cathedrals though. Anyway, most of them cost money to enter and Liz frequently had to wear a little throwover made of some cheap material.

Later, we went to Sienna, which is way more medieval feeling than anywhere we had been. The streets were very narrow with massive doors. It felt very old. There's a famous horserace there called Il Palio where apparently there are no rules. Jockeys get kidnapped sometimes and a horse can win regardless of whether there is a rider or not. It is held here, which is a great place to people watch. It was empty while we were there though, which made things less stressful.

Finally we went to Rome. Rome is the coolest city I have ever been in. It's probably good that we concluded our trip with Rome because Liz and I were feeling quite homesick at this point and were getting a little sick of pizza and pasta (though the pizza out there is pretty good). The Colloseum was amazing. It was way cooler than I thought it would be. It is a must-see for sure. When we were leaving we got some pictures posing with some gladiator impersonators. They're pretty good, but Liz has them all. When/If she posts pictures, check them out.

There are plenty of things to do in Rome. We went to the Vatican museum (but we got there early so we didn't have to wait, we didn't want a repeat of the Uffizi), St. Peter's Basilica, the Spanish Steps, the Fountain of Triton, and many others. St. Peter's is HUGE. You could fit probably 5 big big cathedrals in there. Now I'm not a religious person, so I like to think that maybe religion will slowly die out...or something. I say this because I have a lot of friends who went to church every once in a while with their parents when they were kids, but now they don't give a crap and would probably consider themselves atheist. Anyway, after seeing St. Peter's I was unfortunately convinced that religion's dying out would not be happening anytime soon. There is so much money in the Catholic church. Seeing St. Peter's made me think about how selfish the church is. They are always preaching about helping your neighbor and giving to the poor, but they manage to spend all this money on an over-the-top building. What a bunch of hypocrits.

Anyway, if you go to Italy, definitely go to Rome. One thing I didn't mention so far is the weather. Greece and Italy are sooooo hot in the summer. When we were in Rome, we had AC, so we would stay in our hotel room from around 2pm until 7pm. It was just too hot! I will admit though, it was always sunny and beautiful. We didn't see any rain for the entire month!

Another thing I forgot to mention is how beautiful the Italian countryside is. There are massive fields of sunflowers that are so beautiful. The landscape looked just like it does in the movie Gladiator.

I also didn't mention the random rally/riot we saw in Athens! My parents went to Greece within the last 2 years. When they were walking, my dad started to smell tear gas, so they got out of the street quick. Apparently there had been some protesting. While I was there we didn't smell tear gas, but if we stayed out we might have. Liz and I were walking around at night and all of a sudden we see lots and lots of cops. But these cops were wearing helmets and had shields! We were slightly nervous, because they were dressed more like soldiers than like your friendly law enforcement officer. Anyway, as we got around the corner to Syntagma square and there was a large group of people holding up signs and banners and megaphones. I asked a bystander what it was all about and he said immigrant rights. Athens is definitely a city in transition.

Anyway, that's my trip to Europe. As you might have noticed, there weren't any crazy drunk stories. I don't really think I missed all that much. And I'm pretty sure that if we did drink more often, we would have been much more broke right now. Greece seemed like way more of a party country than Italy. In fact, I didn't get much of a party impression at all where we went in Italy. I think it's because the places we went were already expensive to begin with and most people don't go there to party... Crete definitely had the best looking clubs and bars. So if you go to Greece, definitely go to Crete.