Paul and I celebrated our 15th anniversary in Italy! We were able to travel around and see many different sites and sample so much wonderful food. Mmm...pasta, pizza, gelato and wine. I have posted a few of the pictures we took during our trip.
We rented this Fiat Panda at the Rome airport. While it wasn't the most stylish or fastest car made, it did a fine job of getting us where we needed to go. By the end of the trip, Paul was driving like a true Italian!
We travelled with our friends, The G Family. They have relatives there in Follonica, Italy and in Venice. We based out of Follonica, a nice little city on the Mediterranean Sea. We spent our first full day just relaxing and enjoying the beach. Paul joined in for a game of beach volleyball. The rest of the days we took day trips around Tuscany.
On Monday, we went to Siena. This picture is of the Piazza del Campo. It is famous for the Palio, a horse race that is held there twice every summer.
Tuesday we travelled to Pisa. There, we saw and climbed the leaning tower. We also went into the baptistry there. The architecture is beautiful!
After Pisa, we drove over to Lucca. It is a beautiful, quaint walled city. This is a picture of us on top of the wall. We walked the perimeter to enjoy the view.
We started out Wednesday by driving to San Galgano. The tradition says that a knight named Galgano Guidotti drove a sword into a rock to symbolize his renunciation of worldly life. It was an interesting sight. Who really knows the truth though?
Next, we drove to Monteriggioni where we visited a castle and walked on top of the walls. The view was incredible.
After the castle, we made a quick drive to Strove to visit some family friends, Roberto and Giovanni. We had a delicious home cooked meal and enjoyed visiting with them. We hope it won't be so long between visits next time.
After lunch, we drove to San Gimignano. It is a city that once had 72 towers. Today, 13 remain. Paul took the above picture from the only tower that is still open to the public. He climbed over 500 steps to get to the top. The view made it worthwhile.
On the way back for the night, we stopped at Volterra. It is another quaint walled city. It was recently featured in the Twilight book series. There were some very interesting ruins of a theater there that date back to the first century B.C. We could see that there was still archaeological work being done.
We spent Thursday in Florence. We toured the museum that houses the original statue "David" by Michaelangelo. It was impressive how massive it is. We also visited the baptistry and did a little shopping.
Friday was spent touring part of Rome. First, we saw the Coliseum. It was really interesting to hear the history of this very famous building.
Next, we went over to the Roman Forum. Again, the history is incredible.
On the final day of our trip, we took a five hour tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. It was beyond description.
On our walk back to the hotel, we saw the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain.
We also went into the Pantheon. It was a Roman temple to pagan gods and then turned into a government building. Now it is a Catholic church.
We couldn't have asked for a better trip. We owe a debt of gratitude to Kay for keeping the boys while we were gone. We couldn't have done it without her. She kept them all happy, healthy, and on schedule for the 10 days we were gone. Thanks, Kay!
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